It was an unlikely turn of events: A tiny, unconventional automobile, designed as a thrify response to the Suez Oil Crisis affecting Britain in the 1950s, would become a ferocious racecar competitor in the following decade. In the '60s a small group of sure-handed drivers drove the MINI to beat out larger, faster cars on some of the most challenging rally tracks on Earth, like the world-famous four-stage Monte Carlo Rally, and this cemented the brand's image in the minds of European auto enthusiasts. (Fans could spot the car from afar, by design; the roof was painted in contrasting white.)
One of those drivers was Rally Hall of Famer Rauno Aaltonen, a bloke from southern Finland who had speed in his bones. Aaltonen started off racing speedboats as a boy, then motorcycles, and eventually cars. We caught up with MINI Ambassador Aaltonen for a too-brief interview in Finland—while relatively unknown in America, he was in high demand by European journalists at the press event—and before we get to an awesome time-warp rally vid further down in this entry, we'll show you the two questions we got to squeeze in:
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