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And is there really a MINI robot? If you're asking yourself this question you've either seen the booklet in a magazine recently or heard some noise about it from the web. Well the short answer is it's another creation of MINI's brilliant marketing team.

But you feel like you're missing some of the background story on you can get a nice summary from the 2 Walls Webzine. An excerpt:

'Men of Metal: Eyewitness Accounts of Humanoid Robots is a supposed book by Rowland Samuel. A 37-page “excerpt” fell out of my National Geographic Adventure magazine this month and I had the same contorted expression on my face that you probably have right now. I mean, after all, it sounds retarded – doesn’t it? “Eyewitness accounts of humanoid robots?” What in the world…?'

'But you know what? I got sucked in. I started to read this excerpt and I couldn’t put it down until I finished it. And when I finished it, I wanted to read the book. And in my Internet search for the book, I came across a lot of weird stuff – stuff that, in retrospect I realize, I was suppose to find. I fell for it. I bought the whole thing and followed the bread trail and all I can do is applaud the geniuses that contrived the whole marketing ploy.'

You can read the entire article here.

Update: The Truth Behind Men of Metal