Mini designer Frank Stephenson explains what a can of Budweiser and the new MINI have in common:

"We worked a number of 24-hour days trying to get the full-sized clay model completed for presentation to the board of directors," says Stephenson. "So when we finished the job with just hours to spare, I thought it appropriate that the team have a beer or two to celebrate. That's when I spotted the problem." That problem was the complete absence of an exhaust tip on the otherwise complete clay. Thinking quickly, Stephenson stripped the paint from his beer can, punched a hole in the bottom, and fixed it in place on the model.

"The review went off without a hitch," he says, "and the board told me not to change a thing. Imagine the difficulty I had communicating the specifications of the exhaust to the supplier, without telling him to go copy the sides and bottom of a beer can. I didn't tell them until much, much later."

However, this wasn't Stephenson's only problem with this design. It wasn't long before he was called on the carpet by his boss at BMW. "It wasn't the shape," he says, "everybody liked it because it was unique yet oddly familiar. He was concerned that I had wasted a modeler's time milling the piece when his time could be better spent elsewhere. That was when I felt the need to confess."

That confession got him stunned silence followed by nearly uncontrollable laughter. 

What we would like to know is, with all the great European beers, why a can of Bud?!