A little news, a little Ask Chad and a little gas talk. Put that altogether and you have a fresh batch of Woofcast!
Todd and I kick things off with a bit of news from Motorngfile.com like we like to do. Then, Todd and Chad bring us home with a few Ask Chad. As a special bonus for you, we talk a little about the price of gas and the weather. We weren’t able to get Gabe on this week, but if you want to hear about his Munich trip, check out the latest Bimmercast to hear all about it.
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Recently BMW invited MotoringFile to meet the people behind the ConnectedDrive program and the its lead Dr. Eckhard Stienmeier to see some of the future technology first-hand. While it was a great opportunity to get to know technology better, it was a better chance to get to know the people and see the enthusiasm behind the ideas.
But why are you talking BMWs on the biggest MINI news site in the world? Because if you want to know about the future of MINI’s technology you need to talk with BMW engineers. Look no further than MINI Connected, which started with BMW. As you might expect, that’s just the beginning.
ConnectedDrive is BMW’s program to bring different levels of connectivity into the car safely. The program started inconspicuously in the early 90′s with the Park Distance control on the E32 7 Series. The next big step for ConnectedDrive was addition of Advanced eCall which debuted in 1997. However today’s requirements are much different and there is much more connectivity desired by owners. continued →
MINI has been out in the front with MINI Connected yet it’s not easy thing to encapsulate in an article or even a commercial. So MINI has released a two minute long video (a la Apple) explaining the technology and how easy it is to use.
As many daily readers know MF is getting a Countryman. And over a month back we asked you to help us narrow down what to choose from. Since we’ll have this car for a year to test we wanted to make sure that you had input on what you wanted to see written about and dissected. Then the second step was to present four options of different specs and models.
Today we’re happy to say the votes are in and the decision has been made. With 46% of the vote the Light White Countryman Cooper S All4 is the clear winner. So let’s take a look at what we’ll be getting. continued →
Last week we found a mostly positive review of the Countryman All4 from the NYT. Here we have a very different perspective from Dan Neil across town at The Wall Street Journal.
The purity squads have their tiny knives out for the BMW Mini Countryman, and who can blame them? A 3,200-pound, four-door, all-wheel-drive Mini as big as a Nissan Juke and as potentially as spendy as a BMW 3-series, pushing $40,000? Why, it’s ridiculous, it’s absurd. You might as well suggest a Ferrari four-wheel-drive station wagon.
Today, “all the news that’s fit to print” includes a thoughtful review of the MINI Countryman. Ezra Dyer kicks off with an observation we at MotoringFile know all to well.
It’s an immutable law of the car business: the more focused a company’s lineup, the greater the outrage when that company decides to expand its product range. When Porsche introduced the Cayenne S.U.V. as a 2004 model, purist fans reacted as if the company had announced it was branching into unicycles and Justin Bieber merchandise. “That’s not a Porsche!†cried many people who have never bought, nor will ever buy, a Porsche.
…Just as the aforementioned companies have long histories of building sports cars, the name Mini evokes sprightly front-wheel-drive two-door hatchbacks. So the new Mini Cooper S Countryman All4 — an all-wheel-drive four-door — is a pretty significant departure. And yet I’m not sensing much righteous frothy indignation among the faithful.
1st Gen MINI R50: One & MC Hatch R52: All 1st Gen MINI Convt. R53: MCS Hatch 2nd Gen MINI R55: Clubman R56: Hatch R57: Convertible R58: Coupe R59: Roadster R60: MINI Crossover R61: MINI Crossover Coupe 3rd Gen MINI F55: Clubman F56: Hatch F57: Convertible F60: MINI Crossover F62: Traveller
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Sections: Podcast Mar 8th, 2011 1 Comment 
