Over the next few weeks we will be not only participating in the official North American Clubman press launch but also the US launches of the BMW M3 and 1 Series as well. And while we certainly have our own agenda planned (including potentially some audio and/or video), we want to know what you hear and see knowing our ultimate goal is to make it seem like you were really there with us as we put these cars through their paces both on the road and track.
Starting with the Clubman of course, let’s hear what you’d like to know about the car. Obviously we’ll be giving our take on the car’s the performance, design and how it relates to the other MINIs available. We’ll have a chance to drive the Clubman on some amazing roads south of San Francisco and meet with the very people who designed and engineered the car.
Official BMW Group Press Release: The BMW Group has achieved a new sales revenue record in 2007. Compared to the previous year, group revenues rose by 14.3% to euro 56,018 million (2006: euro 48,999 million). Revenues of the Automobiles segment went up by 12.7% to euro 53,818 million (2006: euro 47,767 million). The Motorcycles segment reported sales of euro 1,228 million (2006: euro 1,265 million /-2.9%), while the Financial Services segment increased its revenues by 25.8% to euro 13,940 million (2006: euro 11,079 million).
Yesterday we brought you the full brochure. Today, we’ve got the Clubman accessories brochure in PDF format. Again a big thanks to our friends at Morristown MINI for supplying us with the PDF.
The Dutch publication Autoweek.nl has one of the best R57 spy-shots to date. While the new pop-up roll-bar system is hidden expect it to increase rear visibility somewhat along with what appears to be a slightly larger rear window.
Expect the new convertible to debut in the spring of 2009.
For all you Clubman fans out there who just can’t wait for launch day, we’ve got something special for you. Thanks to our friends at Morristown MINI, we’re happy to present the official Clubman brochure. You can grab it below.
And if you’re in the Morristown NJ area, make sure to check out Morristown’s Clubman launch part on February 15th from 5pm until 9pm. Food, music and MINIs!
Official BMW Group (UK) Press Release: BMW Group has won What Car?’s coveted Green Award. With EfficientDynamics introduced across the BMW and MINI model ranges as standard in 2007, What Car? rewarded BMW’s efforts with one of most coveted awards in the UK automotive calendar. The UK’s self-styled new car buyers’ bible also announced its 2006 car of the year, the BMW 3 Series, as its ‘Best Compact Executive’ car for the third year in a row. MINI Cooper S retained its ‘Best Hot Hatch’ trophy.
Gabe does a rockin’ intro to get us started and we jump right into our 2 minutes of tech talk, reminding everyone that the great RSS reader NetNews Wire is now free. Then Todd and Gabe are putting Windows on their Macs.
In February, Gabe will be going on the BMW/MINI Press Junket for Rolls Royce, BMW //M3 and 1 Series as well as the Clubman. Watch MF in the coming weeks for more information about that, including a way that you can even help with the reviewing!
And the big part we cut out last week about warranty stuff. Remember, when in doubt, check with your SA. They will always steer you in the right directions.
Finishing with a few questions from our live audience. Don’t forget, we do this on Thursdays and the next time live it will get posted on MF and here the morning of.
We already knew that BMW Group is planning on cutting 8,000 jobs this year, consisting mostly of temporary workers. While that surely impacts MINI’s corporate offices, we weren’t sure how that would impact the Oxford plant. Through sources we’ve now learned that MINI plans to cut as many as 90 temporary positions. As a result of this, production will be cut by approximately 3,000 cars and all shifts will be shortened by 90 minutes.
How about a little brake talk before getting going? By the way, if you are wondering, US$1,000 is pretty steep for a brake job on the MINI. It’s about the easier car to do brakes on.
Moving on to things that we either have to replace or have replaced but didn’t work. We even included a few minutes of Mac talk in there somehow too.
We were live for tonight and tomorrows show via uStream.tv. Thanks to everyone for coming by and playing along from home! So you know, we do the show every Thursday at 7PM PST. If you would like to join us, keep an eye out the morning of because a reminder will be posted.
Here’s a great interview with Peter Doulman, winner of the Australian 2L Touring Car Championship in 1993, who will also be running in the upcoming Australian MINI Challenge.
“I’ve had experience working with BMW in the past so I know the quality of their product and the MINI Challenge so far seems to be an extension of that,” he said.
“They not only know how to build race cars, but with the success of MINI Challenge overseas they know how to run a professional and thriving category and we wanted to be a part of that.”
After enormous success in Germany, Great Britain and New Zealand, MINI Challenge Australia will hit Australian tracks at Eastern Creek in March.
For it being a slow news week, we were able to dig up some great things! There was the 12 most important cars (eventhough the 50 worst was a better list), that silly fake MINI, information regarding a possible 4th BMW brand and the new JCW logo.
It’s video Friday here at MF and today we have a sneak peak at the R57 MINI convertible undergoing some hardcore Nurburgring testing. While this particular video dates back to late 2007, it’s probably worth a look if your a MINI convertible fan or just hearing screaching tires around the ‘Ring.
It must be award season, and MINI is cleaning up. According to Carpages, which has listed quite a few of them.
The January blues have been well and truly beaten by MINI in 2008 with new year awards from Top Gear, What Car?, BusinessCar and Parker’s Car Guides. With successes in these publications that cover retail and fleet, new and used car sales, the champagne is off the ice and the detox will have to wait!
Business Car, Top Gear Magazine, What Car and others have all bestowed some love on our favorite little car.
After last week’s Ask MotoringFile marathon, we realized we still have a couple more that needed to be answered. However for today’s edition, we’ve got some professional help. The question comes courtesy of Dustin:
Is the R53 JCW kit a good idea to refresh your higher milage stock MCS? Providing that the R53 JCW engine kit still available at dealers (which I don’t know if it is or not, or how long MINI plans on producing them if they are) It would seem that the new head and SC fitted to a MINI at say the 100K mark would make the mechanicals sound for the next 100k (since the expected life of the SC is only 150k), plus the new HP would breathe new life into a car for a loyal owner.
Great question Dustin. While we like the JCW upgrade for the R53 quite a bit (and the R56 for that matter) we’re not sure if it’s the best solution if the car isn’t under the factory warranty at this point. Especially considering the cost. So in order to give you a good picture of your aftermarket options, we’d like to turn over this question to Eric Savage, owner of the renowned MINI tuner Helix and longtime friend and supporter of MF. He also knows a thing or two about brewing beer, but that’s a story from another time. Anyway, to the Eric’s answer…
The John Cooper Works package has always been a popular option for new MINI buyers for a couple of reasons: it has the prestige of a factory tuned car, and it carries the factory warranty. As far as I know, retrofitting the JCW kit on an high-mileage car does not extend the warranty on the car (or the new parts, for that matter) which makes it less attractive for the high-mileage MINI owner. The big knock on the JCW package has been its nearly $6000 price tag once installed. It is for that reason that companies such as Helix Minisports has made a living tuning our favorite cars. We can do what the JCW package does–and much more–for substantially less money.
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1st Gen MINI R50: One & MC Coupe R52: All 1st Gen MINI Convt. R53: MCS Coupe 2nd Gen MINI R55: Clubman R56: One/MC/MCS Coupe R57: One/MC/MCS Convt. R60: MINI SUV
Sections: MINI Competitors, R55, Site News Jan 31st, 2008 52 Comments 
Gabe does a rockin’ intro to get us started and we jump right into our 2 minutes of tech talk, reminding everyone that the great RSS reader 
