Opinion: It’s Not Called MINI Cooper – It’s Called MINI!
The term MINI Cooper has become the brand name for MINI in the US and it drives us at MF crazy. Let’s back up for a moment. Most of us know that...
Opinion: Drive Small or (They Will) Die
Small cars are dying in the United States. This week Ford announced that it will no longer be selling traditional sedans in North America and will reduce its car offerings to just...
Opinion: MINI Should Make Adaptive Cruise a Low Cost Option
As MINI looks to get its footing back in the US market there are a couple of areas that the brand clearly needs to focus on. Design and performance have been and...
Let’s Create Our Own MINI Cooper Signature Line
MINI USA is releasing something called “The MINI Cooper Signature Line” – a package that brings a handful of key options to customers for the lowest price possible. Think of the MINI...
Opinion: Is MINI Forgetting what it Means to be Mini?
As MINI prepares to design and engineer the next generation of MINIs, we thought we’d get the cards on the table and talk about whats working and what isn’t in the current...
Opinion: We Want Another R53 Cooper S
163 hp, 2600 lbs and $22,000. Those approximate numbers were some of the key ingredients to one of the most successful cult cars of all time. The R53 Cooper S (2002 –...
BMWM to Eliminate Manual Transmissions from – What Does it Mean for MINI?
According to our sister site BimmerFile, BMW is moving to eliminate manual transmissions (and DCTs) from all its products in the next “handful of years”. You can read more at BF but...
November US Sales Numbers in Context
Due to travel conflicts, we couldn’t post the November sales numbers in the context of the industry as a whole. This post is about the November US industry-wide sales trends and how...
Why Can’t MINI Continue Making Its Old Cars?
Pedestrian impact standards. Crash standards. Efficiency standards. Lets just get them out of the way. These are the typical reasons stated why automakers redesign their cars every 6-7 years. You can also...
Runflats vs Non-Runflats – Are There Any Winners?
Last Friday I was on the receiving end of a tire-shredding Chicago pothole for the second time in two months. The first happened as part of our 2016 7 Series test and...