FOAK[1]: Mini Cooper

It's no cheaper to buy. We've been 4 up in my mates Cooper S, it's not that
bad - wouldn't like to do it every day, but for the 45 miles drive to our
preferred cinema and eatery it's fine. I don't suppose the average buyer of
such cars is buying them as a family car, and as such won't be too worried
about the space. Plenty of room in the back of the Cooper for 2 kids I'd
have thought.

 

My post up there ^^ somewhere pretty much agrees with that. But yea,
they're not so fast, my mates 52 plate Cooper S has never gone wrong, it's
just your basic 167bhp one and my Clio comfortably hands it a spanking in
all areas - especially the brakes, but his are getting on a bit, and mine
are big ass Brembos so that's probably fair.

But he has a Mini badge, and I have a Renault badge, and to some people
that's enough He prefers my interior as well, was amazed at how big a
step Renault have taken with their recent motors. It's got 11k on and
doesn't rattle at all.... yet hehe!

 

You're mental. It appears that kids now take up a lot more room than
they did in the 70's and 80's, judging by the number of people that seem
to be buying people carriers to cart two kids about. I used to fit in
the back of a Peugeot 104ZR (the swb one) without complaining much, but
kids now must have their own aircon, DVD screens, 250 airbags, 4
cupholders and three friends along for every trip..

 

I think the Chilli pack is the Aircon, and it doesn't seem to have that...
But it might be in the Pepper pack, it's not standard anyway (yes, I
know...) so I would definately check that.

That'll be fine, under full Mini manufacturer till 2010. The warranty stays
with the car rather than the owner. Well, that's what it did with my Clio
anyway, and a couple of other new cars my friends have recently bought, I
can't see anyway it could be any different with the Mini?

That's not an issue anymore on the new, new Mini (heh) apparently. I think
it was only a problem with a batch of the early ones - you wanna ask Brownz
about that though. Sorry I'm not trying to tear your thread apart heh -
it's just that as one of my best mates has one you get to learn a few of the
little facts heh

 

I managed to get myself, Katie, her parents and her grandmother in my
Cinquecento....

 

Driven the VW one? My friends dad has one, it's horribly harsh and
generally awful. Almost quite pokey for what it is tax wise though (it's a
'company car' I think - but he works for himself, in that he owns the small
company, so I think it's just like a tax dodge or something, I dunno really,
or care actually hehe). But if you drive it hard it's apparently quite
epically bad on fuel...

 

Hmmm, they're not exactly 'cool' though. Suzuki badge and all...

 

....which is fine on a bike though

 

she thinks beetles are naff, but wants a mini?

She needs her head examining. But then, that's hardly news.

 

Seems a bit pointless, really, given that a GT-TDI is only margainlly
more expensive and has a huge extra wedge of torque.

 

http://www.elmsstanstedmini.co.uk/used_mini/view_model.html?currentCh=WMWMF32060TT15122

**** me that's got some acceleration

--
Dan L

Too much time to think, too little to do.


http://thebikeshed.spaces.live.com/

2002 Triumph Sprint RS 955i (It's big, and it's black)
1996 Kawasaki ZR1100 Zephyr (IT'S FOR SALE)

BOTAFOT #140 (KotL 2005/6/7/8)
X-FOT#000
DIAABTCOD #26
BOMB#18 (slow)
OMF#11

 

Horribly cramped inside and reminiscent of being trapped inside a 1950s
radio.

Shit, in other words.

 

My Leon's quicker than a Cooper S which came as rather a surprise.

 

Stripes on Coopers go way back - long before the Viper. They were all
doing it then, of course - it may even be the original Cooper stripes
were a pastiche of the Cobras (or take your pick of numerous stripey
muscle track cars) in their day. Perhaps the modern Cooper owner is
unaware of the irony when they stripe their car in the same scheme as a
500hp monster.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

"It's a moron working with power tools.
How much more suspenseful can you get?"
- House

 

Goes back further than that - the stripes were the solution to the
problem faced by those minor countries which came late to the motor
racing party so missed out on one solid colour for their national racing
colour schemes, so had different coloured bodywork and chassis. Except
the chassis stopped being visible. So they painted two stripes instead.

The US was down for white with a blue chassis.

 

The bonnet stripes on the 60s Mini Coopers were originally put on to
distinguish one rally driver in the BMC team from the other. Very few
works cars had them fitted, but the craze caught on much later in the
Mini's life with the introduction of the Mk4 Coopers. BMC usually ran
two red Coopers Ss with white roofs[1] in each rally, the top driver
ran the car with the white bonnet stripes so they could be easily
identified by everyone around.

[1] Only works Mini Cooper Ss ran white roofs on red cars, production
Cooper Ss were only ever made all red or red with black roofs. The
option to have an all one colour car was there if the buyer chose it,
he just had to wait for the car to be built and delivered.

--
Lozzo the velologist
Suzuki SV650S K5
Honda CBR600 FW trackbike
Yamaha SR250 Spazz-Trakka
Suzuki GSXR750 L
Suzuki TS50X
Suzuki TS50X

 

my brother loves his.

then again, he's always loved minis.
--
Adie
(replace spam with nickname to reply)

UKRM FAQ: http://www.ukrm.net/faq/
keeper of the ukrm faq for my sins

YZF-R1 : ZX9R E1 : GPz 750 turbo

MRO#11 BOTAFOF#7 BOTAFOT#130 DIAABTCOD#17 MIB#24 YTC#16 BOB#15 ex-UKRMMA#22 BOMB#11

 

Thanks for that. As I was typing out my post I hoped you'd be along with
chapter and verse.
Of course, in the 60s every bugger and his dog was running a striped
Mini, so the uniqueness of the original stripeyness was lost in the
noise.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

"It's a moron working with power tools.
How much more suspenseful can you get?"
- House

 

It's the law.

 

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't buy a car without air-con (or probably dual
zone climate control even) these days.