The first time I ever saw a MINI in person was in the late '60s, after I graduated from high school. I visited an import showroom to look at MGs and Triumphs, one of which I had hoped to be my first new car. The MINI was red, with the Union Jack flag painted on the top of it. It looked “veddy, veddy British Invasion,” what with the Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc. being at the height of their powers, and all things British being very cool.

Despite the fact that the Triumphs and MGs were small, this little coupe, with its tiny tires, looked like a bumper caryou’d see at the amusement park. When the salesman opened the door, I fully expected to see 10 clowns bouncing out of it. My Dad asked the guy where you inserted the key to wind it up. I’m sure the salesman got a lot of that.

As we left the showroom (without any of the British models I was drooling over), and got into my father’s huge, slab sided Buick Electra 225, he joked that we could have slipped any one of those “little pieces of crap” into the trunk and carried it home. Now you get the idea why none of those sports cars wound up in my driveway.

But this past August, MINI celebrated its 50th birthday, a testament to the little car’s appeal worldwide, if never in the U.S., as a basic, fuel efficient mode of transportation. And while the Classic MINI car faded away in Europe in 1999, since BMW resurrected the brand in 2001, they have sold over 1.5 million copies, with the United States being their largest market. I had a chance to spend a week, and a few hundred miles with the MINI Cooper S Convertible, and I have to report, it was a jolly good time