Sep 27th, 2005
From the SCCA.com:
Pete Taylor, of Ortonville, Mich., captured his first National Championship Sunday, taking the Showroom Stock C class win at the 2005 SCCA National Championship Runoffs Presented by Kohler at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Ryan Ciechanski, of Clinton Township, Mich., and Joel Lipperini (also in a MINI), of Pittston, Pa., completed the top-three.
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Sep 27th, 2005
Now that the Frankfurt Autoshow is over I thought it approrpiate to take a quick look at what others are saying about the new MINI Concept around the web:
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Sep 27th, 2005
This news comes from the Independent via Channel4.com:
Sales of the MINI are expected to reach a record 200,000 this year, says the Independent, and annual production – which has already been raised to 230,000 cars after additional investment this year – is expected to expand further still with the launch of the next generation Mini in 2007.
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Sep 26th, 2005
The news that MINI will be extendig it’s range after the debut of the next generation MINI in 2007, shouldn’t surprise anyone. However the Financial Times (and subsequently the Autoindsutry.co.uk) do have this juicy bit on naming issues for the extended wheel base MINI (from the autoindustry.co.uk):
The Financial Times noted that BMW has yet to choose a name for the estate version of the current MINI, having discovered that it may not own the rights to the ‘Clubman’ or ‘Traveller’ names, both used in the past by Mini. An alternative could be ‘Countryman’, a name used for the Austin-badged version of the 1960s Morris Mini Traveller.
You can read more below:
[ BMW considers further expansion of second-generation MINI range ] Autoindustry.co.uk
[ BMW To Extend MINI Range ] Financial Times (sub. required)
Sep 26th, 2005
From MINIUSA Press:
For the fourth year in a row, the MINI Cooper ranked highest in the Compact Car Segment in J.D. Power and Associates latest Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study. The study measures owners’ delight with the design, content, layout and performance of their new vehicles.
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Sep 26th, 2005
On this week’s Podcast Todd, DB and myself talk to the man himself, Fireball Tim Lawrence. We also find time to touch on MINIs in motorsport and the recent success we’ve all read about.
You can check it all out below:
Subscribe | Show Notes | iTunes Link | MP3 Link (21MB)
Sep 24th, 2005
The Toronto Star has a great account of the Targa Newfoundland race actually written by the winning MINI driver Jim Kenzie. Definitely worth a read:
Unlimited. You don’t have to read the rule book for the Targa Newfoundland car rally to understand what that means.
It means, run what you brung. No holds barred.
Bring on your 650 horsepower supercharged Mustang.
Bring on your 450 horsepower Hemi V8 Dodge Charger SRT8.
There are other classes, but Unlimited is the greatest challenge, so we entered our Mini-sponsored 2004 Cooper S with the John Cooper Works Edition package with its throbbing 208 horsepower in Unlimited, against all that might.
And we won!
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