The history of the Mini begins in 1957, when Leonard Lord, president of the British Motor Corporation (BMC), decided to develop a small, reliable, and efficient car for consumers.

At that time, England was in the middle of an oil crisis, and economical cars were a necessity.

Most of these cars had engines below 700 cm³ (cubic centimeters) and were called microcars.

Most of them were produced in Germany.

Lord gave car designer Alec Issigonis the task of creating an English car that would fit into a box 3 m long, 1.2 m wide, and 1.2 m high.

In 1960, production began on that Mini, which was developed for military use but eventually appeared for the public, the Mini Moke.

In 1971, the California model emerged, in 1981 Australian production ended, and in that same year, Portugal debuted with CKD kits, meaning the car arrived in the country disassembled, with the Portuguese maintaining its production until 1989.

After production ended in Portugal, the Italian company Cagiva acquired the production rights and assembled the Moke in Italy until 1994.