It may seem like I’ve been totally ignoring the new MINI Cabriolet that is due out this summer. I figured you were getting all you needed over at motoringfile. Well, it turns out that Gabe has actually seen a Cabrio live and in person:
While waiting for a friend who works for MINI in Oxford to come and pick us up for a quick run to a country pub – something quite unexpected showed up. In fact it was the car just ahead of him. The Cooper Cabrio was being driven by an employee doing a long term test. It had over 1000 miles on it and was missing some of it’s interior bits (for the final engineering process most likely) but otherwise in final production trim. The person doing the testing was simply on his way home probably to put it in his garage for the night.
Click for Story — Click for pictures
And, there is this bit from Business Week via Yahoo! News:
When BMW dealers start selling the new Mini convertible in Europe and the U.S. this summer, the cars will be delivered to customers with the top down and a seal that is broken when the roof is raised for the first time. Buyers will be asked to sign a mock contract committing them to keeping the roof down as long as they can — to stay true to the Mini convertible’s open-minded spirit. “It will spark contests to see how long owners can go before breaking the seal,” says Jack Pitney, vice-president of Mini USA.
In typical MINI fashion, a seal on the top? Now I’m even wanting to check one out!
And finally, SoCal’s own Rob Carver has contributed this story to motorfile.com. Very good read, as his bits usually are.
Not that anyone checks this anymore, but it would appear that I have managed to make the forums disappear. I’m working on restoring them today.
If not, the forums will be closing. I’ll repost either way.
Have you checked out the MINI Motoring gear site lately? Did you know there are 7 different MINI related ways to tell the time available for purchase there? I’ve got the Speedo watch, and there is the Cucukoo Clock. But now there is a watch that will hold 256MB of data and transfer data via USB cable? That would be cool if I knew it would talk to my camera.
Also, out here in SoCal everyone, or so it would seem, has been or is upgrading to aftermarket wheels. This of course has me thinking. No, not because I have to do what everyone else does, but because Roxy needs just a little something more to complete the look. I was really big on the Konig Traffics a while back, but now I’m not so sure. Do I want a big heavy shiny chrome wheel for cruising around, or something lighter? Maybe a set of spinners? I know, the choices are endless. If I make a descision, you’ll be the first to know!
As promised….
Thanks to Karin Kitchens for making this up for me! Please note the added detail of the chrome sidemarkers!
And, Roxy is back home tonight. New transmission, clutch and her flywheel was resurfaced. Cost me track weekend at Pahrump tho, which really sucks!
And I learned something new about the service flow of sorts at Crevier BMW. The first person that ever serviced Roxy the first time she was in service is the same person that has serviced her everytime she has been in. I saw her history, and only 1 tech has worked on her for all of her service visits. I thought that was kinda cool.
Call a call today that Roxy’s almost got a new transmission! That’s pretty fast.
But, before the call that said I’ll be able to pick her up tomorrow, I got the call that said the MINI Tech highly recommends that I go ahead and replace the clutch and have the flywheel resurfaced. Of course, at my expense. Total cost, about $300. They aren’t charging me for labor only parts. So there is that I guess.
Anyway, she’ll be back in the driveway tomorrow, so that’s pretty cool
Later? Pics of Roxy in chocolate!
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