That is the thesis of James Derek Sapienza in his article at
Autos Cheat Sheet. Sapienza concludes:
Ask most gearheads about the most important small car of the 20th century, and it’s likely that they’ll mention the Volkswagen Beetle first. While there were an incredible 21.5 million Beetles built over a 65 year production run, its spiritual successor, the Golf, has a front-engined, front-wheel drive layout just like the Mini’s – and it’s sold over 30 million and counting. The Beetle was an outlier; it was air-cooled, rear-engined, and oddly shaped. The Mini was a blueprint. It was the first successful two-box design, and the starting point for nearly every small car that came after it. Simply put, the Mini was the shape of things to come.
