MINI Conquers Snow and Ice

From a MINI press release:

How about a MINI Cooper that can claw its way over 4-foot snow drifts and speed effortlessly across a frozen lake? Is this the next new model? Not exactly.

A bright-red MINI Cooper was transformed into a larger-than-life, 300 horsepower snowmobile by Discovery Channel's Monster Garage TV program.

The program takes vehicles and transforms them into outrageous, but functioning re-creations, doing double duty not only as a car or truck, but as in MINI's case, a snowmobile. The trick is that the building process cannot take longer than five days or cost more than $3,000.

A team of five guest fabricators led by show-host and custom motorcycle builder, Jesse James, spent five days creating the custom snowmobile out of a MINI Cooper.

“Witnessing a MINI Cooper transform from a road-hugging street car, to a snow-climbing snowmobile, will be a real treat for viewers.” said Jack Pitney, general manager, MINI. “MINI is an ideal car to be customized and that is exactly Monster Garage's thing. Although, I do not expect most MINI customers will go to such spectacular extremes,… you never can tell.”

With the aid of the custom mechanical wizardry, the MINI Cooper morphs into a snowmobile exhibiting a raked stance. Skis lower under the front end and a pair of deeply grooved traction belts extend under the rear wheels to grip the snow and ice.

Once completed the Monster Garage MINI will be pitted head-to-head with a Polaris snowmobile in snowy Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Monster Garage's Jesse James will be behind the wheel of the monster MINI while Richard Petty of NASCAR fame will pilot the snowmobile.

The Mini Cooper/Snowmobile episode makes a World Premiere on Monday, February 24, from 8-9 PM (ET/PT) on the Discovery Channel. The encore episode airs Saturday, March 1 from 7-8 PM (ET/PT).