Mini is a British automotive marque owned by BMW

BMW

Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands...

 which specialises in small cars

Supermini

A superminicomputer, or supermini, is “a minicomputer with high performance compared to ordinary minicomputers.” The term was an invention used from the mid-1970s mainly to distinguish the emerging 32-bit minis from the classical 16-bit minicomputers...

.

Mini originated as a specific vehicle, a small car originally known as the Morris Mini-Minor

Mini

The Mini is a small car that was made by the British Motor Corporation and its successors from 1959 until 2000. The original is considered a British icon of the 1960s, and its space-saving front-wheel-drive layout influenced a generation of car-makers...

 and the Austin Seven, launched by the British Motor Corporation

British Motor Corporation

The British Motor Corporation, or commonly known as BMC was a vehicle manufacturer from United Kingdom, formed by the merger of the Austin Motor Company and the Nuffield Organisation in 1952...

 in 1959, and developed into a brand encompassing a range of small cars, including the Clubman, Traveller and Moke

Mini Moke

The Mini Moke is a vehicle based on the Mini and designed for the British Motor Corporation by Sir Alec Issigonis. The name comes from "Mini"—the car with which the Moke shares many parts—and "Moke", which is an archaic dialect term for donkey...

. The original two-door Mini continued in production until 2000. Development of a successor began in 1995 and the new generation car was launched in 2001.