After 41 years of continuous production, manufacturing of the car that symbolised the Swinging Sixties ended at the MG Rover Group plant at Longbridge, Birmingham.

Production of a new BMW Mini will now be switched to the Cowley works in Oxford while Longbridge takes over manufacturing the new Rover 75 model.

At a ceremony at the Birmingham factory, Lulu drove a red Mini Cooper, registration 1959-2000, off the track to music from the Italian Job, the film starring Michael Caine which made the car an icon.

The vehicle will now be housed at the Heritage Motor Museum in Gaydon, Warwickshire, alongside the first from 1959.

The Mini was launched by BMC (British Motor Corporation), although it was not officially known as the Mini at the time. BMC had been formed in 1952 by the merger of Austin and Morris, so the Mini was launched in two versions - the Austin Se7en and the Morris Mini-Minor.

The two cars that were launched on 26 August 1959, the Austin and the Morris, were all-but identical, except for badges and radiator grilles.

It took time for the Mini to catch on. The first year's production (the eight months from May to December 1959) amounted to less than 20,000 cars.

In 1960, more than 100,000 Minis were made. In 1962, annual production for the first time reached more than 200,000 cars, and stayed consistently above this figure until 1977.

At first, the Mini was treated with some derision, even suspicion, because of its small size and its unconventional features.

However, the praise lavished on the new cars by the press helped, and so did the fact that the Mini was adopted by the fashionable "Chelsea set" - the equivalent of a later generation's Sloane Ranger or Yuppies.

Famous people bought Minis - long-standing devotees included Peter Sellers and Peter Ustinov, and members of the Royal family took to mini-motoring, most famously Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon.

The other aspect that helped the success of the Mini along was the introduction in 1961 of the first Mini-Cooper.

Fitted with a twin-carburettor 997 cc (later 998 cc) tuned engine inspired by Formula One Champion Constructor John Cooper, front disc brakes, a remote-control gear change and extra instruments, and immediately recognisable by distinctive two-tone colour schemes (the roof was either white or black, depending on the body colour) this became the car to be seen in, in Kings Road or Carnaby Street, and also began to make a career for the Mini in the world of motor sport.

Various modified Minis had already taken part in saloon car racing, and the model had made its somewhat inauspicious rallying debut in the 1959 RAC Rally.

The Mini-Cooper and the even more potent Mini-Cooper 'S', launched in 1963 with a 1071 cc engine, put Minis firmly on the map as the saloon car to be reckoned with in competition on the 1960s.

The first big success for a Mini came with Pat Moss's win in the 1962 Tulip Rally, in a 997 cc Mini-Cooper. At the time, the Monte Carlo Rally was the one event, which dominated public perception of rallying. This therefore became the important event for BMC to win. In 1964, a 1071 cc Mini-Cooper 'S', driven by Paddy Hopkirk and Henry Liddon, did just that.

This was no fluke either, because the Mini-Cooper 'S', in the later 1275 cc form, won the Monte Carlo again in 1965 and 1967. The drivers on these two occasions were Timo Makinen and Paul Easter (1965), and Rauno Aaltonen and Henry Liddon (1967).

While the three Monte Carlo wins were the high points of the Mini-Cooper's competitions career, there were many other notable victories, such as in the 1965 RAC Rally and several wins of the Tulip Rally (1964 and 1966, apart from 1962).

Although by 1967 the Minis were beginning to be out-classed by more powerful and specialised competitors, in addition to the Monte Carlo Rally, the BMC works cars also won the Alpine Rally, the Acropolis Rally, and three other major European events.

The last full season contested by the BMC works team was 1968, but by then the original BMC Competitions Department at Abingdon was virtually closed down, and the heyday of the Mini-Cooper was over.