 BMC (British Motor Corporation), the owners of Mini, refused to  donate any cars to the film. The boss of Fiat Motors offered to  donate all the cars they needed including Fiat 500s in place of the  Minis. The director however decided that as it was a very British  film, it should be British Minis. Fiats boss still donated scores  of cars for filming as well as the factory grounds and even had the  chief of police shut whole sections of Turin down for filming, so  the traffic jams in the film are real.