Four adults in a car this small?

In 1956, when the Suez Canal was blocked, fuel vanished from Britain.
Petrol stations checked ration coupons before money, and the empty roads filled with German bubble cars with three wheels and two seats.
Cars that kept the machine as it was and shrank only the space for people.
The chairman of Britain's largest car company could not stand it.
“Drive those things off the road with a proper small car.”

The design was handed entirely to Issigonis.
About 3 meters long, with four adults inside.
He turned the engine, usually mounted lengthwise, 90 degrees to lie crosswise, and stacked the gearbox beneath it.
10-inch wheels, and fist-sized rubber cones instead of springs. As the machine shrank, the room for people grew.
It launched as the Austin Seven and the Morris Mini-Minor, but people did not bother with the long names.
Just MINI.
A car built by taking things away had its name trimmed too.

By the time the car came out in August 1959, rationing had already ended.
Yet MINI (@official_miniclassic) still sold.
The body was small, and the cabin was large.
The first model sold in that same shape for 40 years.

The crisis became a different opportunity.
It made less room for the machine and more room for people.
Its layout, with the engine laid crosswise,
became the standard for today's small cars.