a very similar brief to the Minor, had been upgraded consistently over 25 years, and retained a healthy market share in export markets (especially developing countries), where it was very often the lowest priced new car on the market. It went on to achieve over 21 million units before cancellation in 2003. Having said this, in the year of the Minor's cancellation (1971), over 1.3 million Beetles were produced (its peak year of production). This corresponded to over 80% of total Minor production in 23 years, or ten times the production volume of Minors in their peak year (1958) when 113,699 were built. This gulf of production capacity made the Minor's ability to effectively challenge the Beetle, which had a global distributor and servicing network, moot. Some historians also report that the Minor was being sold at a loss during its final years. British Leyland management were pinning hopes for greater market share and profitability on the Morris Marina, which was being specifically developed for assembly on the Minor production lines at Cowley, thereby precluding the continuance of Minor production in any event. Successors The Minor was officially replaced on the Cowley production lines by the Morris Marina (ADO28), which was developed primarily in response to Ford's top-selling (and in many respects, conservatively engineered) Escort. Building a larger mid-sized car capable of volume sales (particularly in the lucrative fleet-buying market) was becoming increasingly key in maintaining healthy sales figures, and was an issue BMC had consistently failed to address hitherto. The Marina was developed under the watchful eye of British Leyland management, and used a modified version of the Minor chassis floorplan, extended to increase the wheelbase by 10 inches. Many other Minor components, including much of the suspension, were used in the running gear, which served to streamline production changeover and minimise the financial outlay associated with chassis development and retooling. The spiritual successor to the Morris Minor was arguably the ADO16 Austin/Morris 1100 range, which had been launched in 1962 and aimed at the same small family-car market (and actually replaced the Minor in some export markets such as Australia and New Zealand). The crisp styling, hydrolastic suspension and innovative front-wheel drive system (itself a "scaling-up" of the Mini principle) made ADO16 a worthy successor to the (in its day) forward-looking Minor. However, due to the British Motor Corporation's commitment to both the Morris factory at Cowley, and