This Mini is of Austin decent, but has been redone quite a lot with early 90's styling. It is, however a truly original Cooper underneath. This, made just before the "stupification" of British Leyland, is one of the last examples of what a true Cooper was supposed to be: a spartan and minimal, yet comfortable, giant slayer.

-History Lesson-

Getting back to the roots of this car, the Mini was first released in 1959 with few things in mind. Efficiency and reliability in an ultimately compact design. This car was meant to take four full grown men and their luggage to and from work with their briefcases with no problems at all. Alec Issigonis was shooting for an 80-20 ratio. 80% passanger space and 20% engine and luggage space. However, in designing the car, Alec Issigonis accidentally made one of the most important advances in automotive technology... The transversely-mounted front wheel drive engine (an engine setup almost all economy cars, and even many sport cars, use today). Which in turn actually save an outstanding amount of room to yield 84% passanger space. In this "accident" Alec Issigonis had designed the ideal candidate for a well balanced, well handling small sports car... And when John Cooper heard of the Mini, he was all over it like Jaws on a group of swimming kindergartners. He shoved one of his Junior Formula engines into it and competed in a few races and found it to be just perfect. The companies building the Mini agreed to sell a special version of the Mini, dubbed the Mini Cooper, to be overseen by John Cooper and to carry on its new racing pedigree. And of course many rally and circuit racing championships ensued. This caught the interest of the world and soon everybody had one; even the Queen, the Beatles, Enzo Ferrari, and Steve McQueen owned Minis (to name a few). Production ended of the nearly unchanged Mini in 2000, and, well, let's just say now there's more of these classic Minis on Earth than there are people living in the city of Atlanta, Georgia. These are just a few of the reasons that the classic Mini is one of the most influtential and important cars of the 20th century.

-End of History Lesson-

Which brings me to another point... Why doesn't Jay own one? Yeah I know it's not super rare, but I know how he likes "landmark" cars. Why not a Mini?