By Nick Aziz
Wednesday, Jan 25th, 2006 @ 11:43 am

When the second-generation Mini is launched late this year, its engineering will be Italian, not German like parent BMW, or British, like the brand, Auto News says. Rather, BMW hired Italian design house Italdesign Giugiaro to coordinate the engineering. BMW styled the new Mini and designed its powertrain, but Italdesign is handling all other development – including developmental engineering of the body, structure and chassis.