Watch the Last Original Mini Coopers Being Built by Hand

The original Mini Cooper was an icon. The small, boxy machine transcended its roots as a practical economy car, becoming a hallmark of British 1960s culture and a tiny juggernaut in motorsports.

And while the Mini's powertrains and interior appointments evolved over its forty-plus years of production, the very last examples to roll off the production line in 2000 looked almost identical to the very first built in 1959.

It left an indelible mark on British culture, as important and immediately recognizable as the similarly retro-timeless Land Rover Defender. BMW tried to capture that stalwart charm with the thoroughly modern, all-capital-letters MINI lineup, but purists still prefer the original Alec Issigonis design.

This video, created in 2000 as the very last original Minis were being built, shows how thoroughly old-school the Mini production line was. You'll see no robots, no automated bolt guns, no autonomous pallets of parts puttering along next to the production line. Just a bunch of British blokes hefting stamped body parts and interior trim into place. Sometimes, two or even three of these technicians cram into a single car to assemble the interior

Masters at work, building a bygone icon.

From: Road & Track