Gallery: ten years of Mini concept cars

500 years ago, Nostradamus wrote this on a napkin. "One day there will be a small car called a Mini. Then there will be another. But it one won't be small. Everyone will describe it as ‘funky'. Many will buy. The concepts will be odd. "

That was a lie.

But he may as well have done - since the launch of the One ten years ago, more than 300,000 have been bought in Britain. And its success probably has a lot to do with BMW slavishly bumping the Mini brand into so many niches - family estate, hoonigan's b-roader, SUV, diminutive luxo-thing, city coupe, trendy rag-top etc etc...

And lunging into new markets always starts with a concept car. So we thought we'd look back at the beginnings of Mini's ever expanding genome.

Click on for more.