Taking Mini issue

Regarding your 'Mini celebration' article (

, 9 April) BMW did not 'rescue' Mini from MG Rover, they kept the asset that was new Mini when they decided to offload the rest of the Rover Group. In doing so they almost certainly contributed in a major way to the demise of the car division, as they had deprived it of the income it desperately need for future model development.

Second, BMW did not do 'a better job re-inventing the Mini'. It did not reinvent the Mini at all — Rover did. Project R59 (celebrating the 1959 introduction of the original Mini) was designed and developed by Rover engineers in Coventry.

I remember seeing the styling clays at Canley in the early to mid-nineties. To give BMW credit for their work is insulting.