Jul 31st, 2008
MINI UK Press Release: 50 years of Mini and MINI to be celebrated in England
2009 will mark the 50th anniversary of the launch of the original Mini, and the second generation new MINI will be commemorating this incredible achievement in style, right here in England.
The MINI United festival, which in recent years has brought together thousands of classic Mini and new MINI owners to celebrate a British icon, will be staged at a renowned race circuit in England and kicks-off on 22 May 2009. The exact location and further details will be announced in the near future.
You can keep up to date on MINI United 2009 at MINIUnited.com
Jul 30th, 2008
Todd in Chicago having way to much fun talking to some of the 1,000 MTTS attendees from all over the event site.
Including an interview with Harold Stanfield, who has 281,000 miles on his MINI. And its Silk Green! He didn’t even replace and brakes until after 180K miles. Amazing. So concludes our Chicago coverage.
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Jul 30th, 2008
With the price of fuel at an all time high and consumers continually looking for ways to save on fuel costs, talk of the MINI Diesel rears its head once again. As noted here before, the costs of development in bringing the diesel MINI to the US would not be recouped by the estimated number of diesel MINI sales in the US. The new twist is that the estimates of how many diesels would potentially sell were done looking at $3/gallon fuel. Now that fuel prices in the US are between$4 and $5/gallon and projected to be $7/gallon by 2010 (WSJ – 6/26/08), the question of a diesel in the US, apparently, needs to be readdressed. The downside to this is that diesel is currently selling for almost 18 percent more than regular unleaded.
The challenge is squarely on the shoulders of marketing gurus to educate the public on the benefits, ease of use and maintenance of a diesel MINI. Most of us see it as simple math – 47-60 MPG (diesel) is better than 35-40 MPG (unleaded) even with 18 percent more cost at fill up. The 50 percent greater efficiency of the diesel wins every time. This has been discussed ad infinitum and nothing has changed about the facts of the situation. What is changing is consumer demand and if enough consumers demand a diesel MINI to offset development costs. It remains a possibility.
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Jul 29th, 2008
We’ve been watching this happen over the last few months as on-hand MINI supplies dwindled from 5 days, to four, then down to 2 days. Now, they are out. From Autoweek.com.
The nation’s 82 Mini franchises are out of cars, and dealers can do little more than take orders and deliver preordered units for the rest of the year.
As fuel prices have risen, demand for the Mini Cooper has outstripped supply.
“For the last three months, we were selling from inventory,” said Jim McDowell, vice president of BMW’s Mini division. “There’s no way (July) can be as good.”
That makes a certain amount of sense that July sales might be down a bit due to lack of inventory. Even with the lads in Oxford working 3 shifts per day, 7 days per week, 800 cars a day just isn’t enough.
[ Dealers fresh out of Mini Coopers ] Autoweek.com
Jul 28th, 2008
This past Saturday at MTTS Chicago Todd got the chance to interview Edgar from Bosch about the MINI Cooper Diesel they have in the US for testing.
It’s a great conversation about a car we don’t yet get but everyone (it would appear) wants. Hopefully they will have it in LA for us to check out during MTTS.
Bosch Interview:
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7:00 | Shownotes/Download | WRR @ iTunes
Jul 28th, 2008
Most of us around the MF offices are pretty big fans of Top Gear. We thought it was especially nice when BBC America decided to start sharing the goodness that Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May dish out on a weekly basis. Eventhough they aren’t showing the current season, we still have ways to keep current, and with good reason, especially this week. Check out the video after the jump!
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