Mar 31st, 2012
In the past two years, MINI has come back to racing in a big way. With several WRC podium finishes last year and a dominating win of this year’s Dakar Rally, MINI has made its re-entry into motorsports in a big way. I say re-entry because MINI made a name for itself in Rally racing nearly 50 years ago when it took the Monte Carlo not once, not twice, but three times. To MINI fans it’s a familiar story and along with it is a familiar name: Rauno Aaltonen — the man behind the wheel. continued →
Mar 29th, 2012
While the Chrome Line interior and exterior packages have long been a staple of spec’ing any new MINI, owners looking for less bling have had to turn to folks like Todd Pearson to get the glair off some of the MINI’s shiny details. It would appear MINI is now seeing the appeal and will soon be introducing a “Black Line” set of exterior details.
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Mar 29th, 2012
Autoblog has some new photos of what is obviously a test mule for the next MINI JCW GP we told you about a few weeks back. Looking closely at the photos, they’re confirming for us many things we already knew and have reported on. For starters you can’t help but notice the MINI Challenge-bred rear wing and the functional diffuser, even under the yellow and black swirls (a color combo that only MINI uses as it turns out). It’s also hard to miss the stance which has clearly been lowered over the standard Sport suspension equipped cars. continued →
Mar 27th, 2012
The highly anticipated Recaro seat option will be unavailable for the Coupe and Roadster during the month of April. This is due to a subtle tweak in the design of the stand-alone post/pivot for the seatbelt due to potential wear issues.
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Mar 27th, 2012
Woofcast 419:
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Nathaniel signs up for AMVIV, Chad wishes for the MINI Electric Scooter and Todd put his name on his list for the next GP. Sounds like a great show to us! Add in news from MotoringFile and some Ask Chad and, as the kids say, boom! continued →
Mar 26th, 2012
We’ve been celebrating 10 years of MINI USA over the past week here at MotoringFile, but let’s not forget, it’s MINI’s birthday all over the world. The fine folks at MINI Canada celebrated in fine style by surprising MINI owners at stop lights with a miniature street party. Click past the jump for the video. continued →
Mar 26th, 2012
Ten years ago I played hooky from work for a few hours. After all it was a special day. A new brand from BMW was being introduced to the US that had completely captured my imagination. As a bit of an Anglophile and rabid car enthusiast, I just had to test drive one. If my hunch was correct, I’d likely put in an order afterwards.
As I drove up to the dealer (there were only two in Chicago at the time) I remember reminiscing about what made me a “car guy” in the first place. Some of my first memories are helping my dad under the hood of his BMW 2002. That car sparked something in me that grew into a fascination with design, engineering and of course cars in general. That car seemed like ground zero for a movement. The second shockwave in my automotive life came on that late March day in 2002 when MINI USA opened doors across the country. It felt like history was ready to be written. All I had to do was go drive the car. continued →
