Rocketboy's MINI Blog - Archives

There's not too much new in this article on Business Week Online, but there are a couple of cool tibds of info that I wanted to pass on...

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.

I think that it will be a short contest in Western New York. There always seems to be rain right around the corner. Usually right after you washed your car...


Orders for the convertible already total 3,000 in Britain alone, and market researchers expect global sales to reach 25,000 to 30,000 this year. The convertible Mini is part of BMW's plan to transform the Mini from model to brand, a full lineup that gives the Mini idea staying power. Though BMW is mum, many expect a Mini wagon to hit the market around 2006, followed by a roadster.

Humm... the roadster rumor pops up again, and no mention of a Moke. MINI really does want to keep us guessing doesn't it?


Being fashionable, of course, carries a risk. Retro remakes such as the Volkswagen Beetle or Ford Thunderbird enjoyed an initial spike in sales only to suffer a rapid decline. But market researchers say the Mini will fare better because it has been taken upmarket and packed with cutting-edge technology. BMW has nurtured Mini mania by keeping supply running just short of demand. Its biggest selling point may be its individualist appeal. More than half of buyers custom-order their Minis and wait three months for delivery. This surprised even BMW, which receives custom orders for 30% of BMWs sold in the U.S.

BMW's conundrum now is how to squeeze more volume from its Oxford plant to accommodate sales of the convertible. It may eventually outsource some production. "It's a difficult challenge," says BMW Chief Executive Helmut Panke. Grappling with higher-than-expected sales is a problem Panke's rivals would love to face.

Also, when you think about it, the Thunderbird and the Beetle are really just one model. The difference with MINI is that it's just not the traditional Mini model, but there are/were many different variants. (You can check this page to get an idea, but it does not look like it's fully up and running yet.. (or just dying already)

Erik...

Autoweek Online has recently updated their longterm test of their 2003 MINI Cooper S. There are no big suprises in the article, but they did say "there may be no better indicator of how impressed we are with a long-term car than when we start investigating the possibility of making it a permanent part of our lives. Our Mini Cooper S, in its third quarter, has us thinking that way, daring to contemplate “till death do us part...”".

They also mentioned the little 'secret' that many non-MINI owners cannot comprehend. That once you put the back seats down, you can pack quite a bit in that little car. " It swallows a mountain of stuff in back—crates of soft drinks and other bulk foodstuffs—yet remains one of the most easy-to-park vehicles we’ve ever driven (can you say both of an SUV?)".

And their continued love for it just remided me of this blog entry over at dbmini.us. Every time I sit in my MINI, drive my it, or even just look at it, I still feel like that day when I picked it up from the dealership over a year and a half ago...

Erik...

From The Akron Beacon Journal;

To avoid getting stuck with a bunch of vehicles that are worth much less than the dealers or lessors have invested in them when the leases end, they try to set the lease payments according to predictions of how much the cars will be worth down the road.
That's where the Automotive Lease Guide comes into play as a valuable tool for dealers/lessors. The guide assigns a star rating to each vehicle, from one to five, with five being reserved for vehicles with the best residual values.
In the latest rankings of new vehicles, recently released by the guide, 26 of the new vehicles on the market got five-star ratings, while another 26 ranked at the bottom of the list with one-star ratings.
...
Porsche's GT2 made the five-star list, along with ... BMW's Mini Cooper.


No shocker there...

You can read the whole article here.

Erik...

Today, on Tuner Transformation, not only will there be a MINI featured, the MINI is owned by the founder of the Southern Ontario MINI Club. As Paul states:

Well, as it turns out I was selected to participate in that new TV show "Tuner Transformation." The format is pretty simple. They know what I use the car for, they take that into account, however they don't tell me what mods they're going to be doing until they reveal the car to me at the end.

I could end up with a purple car with pink polkadots but I could also end up with a great autocross/performance car. Think of it like one of those home decorating shows like "While you were out" except for cars.

The episode will be airing on Speed channel Tuesday March 30th at 7pm. I've got the car back but cannot post pictures etc of the car or discuss it. Watch the episode!

It will be airing tonight at 7pm and midnight. It will also be on Friday at 10am, and Saturday at 6pm, according to the Tuner Transformation website.

Erik...

If this is not your first time here, you might notice that this is new:


Not that I get much traffic (but it does increase every week, so thanks, I never thought that my little MINI blog would start showing up at the top of Google searches, nor would someone bother to click. So thanks...), but I figured that I might as well try to use some of it that I do get. I'm a fan of Google Ad-Sense, and as Google really does power my page via Blogger, they were my first try. But alas, they do not support pages like mine where the owner of the page does not actually own the whole domain. Oh well. Well, today while checking my e-mail, I was sent a notice from Vonage that one of my friends signed up for it using a link I sent them. And I remember that Vonage has a program that I could use. So here's the advertisements. But, because I'm not going to do ads for things that I don't actually like, or endorse, here's my quick review of my Vonage service, which will be exactly the same as if I wasn't getting something back from Vonage every time someone signs up thru the link.

I LOVE VONAGE. I went from an over $60 a month phone bill, to just $14.99. I get a lot of free extras, some I use (Caller ID, call fowarding, call waiting), some I don't (voicemail), and one of the best ones, the Network Availibility feature. If Vonage cannot connect to your phone adaptor, the call will be fowarded to another number, like a cell phone.
I am on the lowest calling plan, which is timed at 500 local or long distance minutes (yes, long distance calls do not count double, or triple, but at the same rate as the local calls), but for you hard core phone users, the top tier plan at $34.99 is FULL UNLIMITED (that's right, UNLMITED) local and long distance, and for the sake of long distance, Canada does NOT count as an out of country call. Yes, to Vonage, calls to Canada only count as a regular in-state long distance call. Not to forget the people in the middle, you can get unlimited local (to Vonage, local is your whole Area Code. Not just your town and the next town over, the WHOLE area code. ), and 500 long distance (including the Canada deal) for $24.99.
It's easy to install, but to actually wire up all of your phones if you have a house with many extensions, it might be a pain, but to me, it's much less of a pain to pay $15 a month than $60

And, if you use my links to Vonage, your second month of service is free.

Erik...

From the official thread over at the forum for the MINI Cooper Club of WNY:

MINI Club of WNY would like to present their 2nd Annual MINI Road Rally on June 12th. The rally this year will also include a picnic so it will be a double event. To participate in the rally this year all you will need is a MINI (of course) and a partner and the registration fee.

Registration fee at the time of the event will be $20.00 [You can pre-register for $15, see the thread for details]. There will be a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize. The rally will include questions along the way so it is imperative that you have a navigator with you. The winners will be based on the amount of questions right and speed and time.


Erik...

Jack Pitney, GM for MINIUSA is quoted quite a few times in this article posted up at Quicken.com's investment news center. The original article is from The Wall Street Journal Online but Quicken was nice enough to post it up for free...


The U.S. marketing arm of Bayerische Motoren Werke's Mini brand, which marked its second year on the U.S. market Monday, is aiming to sustain sales at their current level this year despite the dollar's weakness, tight capacity at the British Mini factory and increasing competition.
Mini sold about 36,010 Cooper and Cooper S models in 2003, up from 24,590 cars in 2002. "You could expect us to run at around this volume for some time," said Jack Pitney, general manager for Mini USA.

Nice... So we are still in the clear from a PT Cruiser like glut of MINIs on the road... No big surprise there though.


He noted Mini sales in the U.S. have far surpassed the company's original projections of about 20,000 cars a year. Since the brand launched in the U.S., it has sold 68,191 cars, including sales tallied through midday Monday, said Mr. Pitney.
Like its parent BMW, Mini is under pressure because the falling value of the U.S. dollar is pushing up the dollar costs of the brand's British-built vehicles. Mr. Pitney said BMW is reviewing U.S. prices on a quarterly basis. Currently, the cheapest Mini Cooper starts at $16,999. A Cooper S starts at $20, 449. About 45% of Mini's U.S. sales are more expensive Cooper S models.
Short-term, Mr. Pitney said Mini's problem is that a surge in December sales depleted inventories to a slender five days' supply. Longer-term, he said Mini faces a challenge to avoid the fate of other specialty small cars that have racked up big, fad-driven sales in the first two years, only to fade when fashion moves on.

Another wow.. still only a 5 day supply? Talk about Just-In-Time.


"We're ... looking at building a family of products," Mr. Pitney said. "If you look back in our history, Mini had a woody station-wagon vehicle, we had pickup trucks, we had a 'Moke,'" a vehicle that looked like a small Jeep, although with a different grille.
Mini plans to launch a new, convertible model in the U.S. in September, Mr. Pitney said. He wouldn't say when Mini will add another distinct body style to its lineup.

Nice.. A new Mini Moke (would that be MINI MOKE, or would that just look too much like yelling?) would be a nice alternative to a MINI Cooper that would help expand the market quick. I would love to see a MINI station wagon (not that I would be trading in my 'S' any time soon), but I can easily see how a Moke might make a better choice for the next model.


Erik...

According to this article on CTNow.com, we should be seeing the MINI Convertible soon.

MINI CONVERTIBLE TO DEBUT SOON

The four-seater Mini Cooper Convertible will make its North American debut at the 2004 New York International Auto Show in April. The Mini Cooper Convertible comes with a normally aspirated 1.6-liter, four-cylinder engine, and the Mini Cooper S Convertible comes with the supercharged 1.6-liter, four-cylinder engine.

Erik...

I'm guessing that most of the MINI fans read about the article in Consumer Reports which mentioned the MINI. If you missed it, you can catch it on MotoringFile.com.

It seems to be well documented that there are just some bad MINIs out there, but the rest of us were scratching our heads about some things that just didn't' make sense. Apparently we were not the only ones. An editorial on the online edition of The Chicago Tribune points out these other strange aspects of the report:

But CR results tended to be as confusing as they were informative. CR relied on its testing plus feedback from 600,000 readers to rate the most reliable new ('03 models) and used (1996 to 2003) cars as well as the most satisfying new ('03) and used (1996-2003) cars, plus recommendations for top picks ('04). Hard to sort them out.
...
It may have surprised some that the Ford Focus is a CR top pick, considering that car's history of 23 government recalls. But the '03 Focus SVT made the cut because it's the model's first blemish-free year after 13 recalls for 2000, nine for 2001 and one for 2002.
...
The BMW 3-Series rated only average in owner reliability but "most satisfying" among luxury car owners who said they'd gladly buy another.

Owners of the Mini Cooper reported 25 problems per 100 vehicles on the reliability rating, well above the industry average of 17. Yet the Mini was rated "most satisfying" among owners of small cars.


I never held the ratings for cars in Consumer Reports in high regards. It always seemed to me like asking a car magazine what videogame to buy. And with the big round-up every year, you have to take in account that it's really a fake survey. Fake, as in it's only for the demographic of Consumer Reports readers, not the public at large. I would also like to know what was the distribution of car ownership in the 'study'. As someone who has always been fascinated by manipulating statistics to prove your point, the non-random nature of the report always bothered me.

Erik...

You lucky bastards in Charleston SC and Rockford IL, the Phil Wicks MINI Driving Academy is coming your way.

Now you have an opportunity to learn to make the most of your MINI's potential under the guidance of one of the world's most experienced driving professionals. The Ultimate Mini Driving Academy offers an opportunity for drivers of all types to test the limits of the MINI in a safe and controlled environment. Whether your driving is strictly on the street or you're involved in MINI motorsports, the Ultimate Mini Driving Academy will provide you with the skills and confidence to handle your MINI in both hazard situations and normal driving.

I can only hope it makes it out my way...

Erik...

(bad pun, I know...)

FYI... No, I do not have the MyDoom worm. Nor will I. Someone in the Asia-Pacific region does, and they've been here. So, if you get an e-mail from me, and you have no idea why I would be sending you an e-mail with an attachment, it's not from me, and don't open it. Of course, 'don't open unexpected attachments' is a good rule of thumb, but it's advice often ignored, or we wouldn't have most of these worms in the first place.

Erik...

Here's another article, this time from the Detroit Free Press, about how GM hopes to "woo the same chic buyers drawn to the popular pocket-sized Mini Cooper" with the new Nomad. Sorry GM, but a MINI is a MINI. It's not just a "chic" car that all the kids are buying because it's cool. I doubt that market segment would have helped the MINI sold as many units as they have, worldwide. Yes, I understand how the popularity of the MINI (especially in the states, where it's been the SUVs that have been leading the pack in sales growth) is making some auto manufacturers think again about the 'Bigger is Better' mentality, but, I'd dare say that the gross majority of MINI owners are MINI owners because they want a MINI. Not just a small car, not just a 'cool' car (which even if it was as hip as a Pinto, I'd still drive mine with pride), but a MINI. A car with a proud history, a car with soul, not some new cheap way of making 1 type of car, and at the last minute it's one of 3 (or more) different cars, each with different names and brands, but a MINI.

I'm not saying that the Kappa platform idea will be a bust. Really, I don't care if it works out for GM or not. Good for them if it does. But all I'm saying, is what makes the Kappa platform the Kappa platform keeps it from having the same spirit as a MINI. And GM does not seem to understand that.

Erik...

(In case you missed it, this is a really cool link to the history of the Mini, from MINIUSA.com)

The page is still hard to get to, it might be do to it's recent slashdotting, or it's just gone already, but there is a mirror up. So, what am I talking about? This:

Vehicle to autonomous biped robot conversion for the Mini Cooper r50.

I first had the vision to build a robot while working as an engineer on the old Mini Coopers in the late 1960s. There were no real robots at the time of course, so it was purely science-fiction. But I always believed a robot would be the most natural complement to the automobile - a full biped, intelligent version having great strength, dexterity and a library of mechanical knowledge. I imagined a robot with the ability to repair vehicles, direct traffic and watch over high-accident crossroads to preempt accidents.

This ambition started to look possible when work began on the new Mini. I've always believed BMW overbuilds many of their parts, so the over-building of certain Mini applications for my robotics use went unnoticed. In 1998, I began tests in a remote location outside Oxford.

In 2000 I thought my formal connection to Mini might be severed when Rover was sold by BMW. Luckily, BMW chose to retain the Mini brand. Subsequently, a few engineers would need to stay in England - Oxford to be exact. I was slated for retirement and was originally from the Oxford area so it raised little suspicion when I offered to stay. From then on, progress was swift.

Even a quick look can tell you it's about as real as Batboy, but it is just as cool...

Erik...

Just a quick heads up to let you know that WNYCarClubs.com has quite the listing of events so far. At last count, they have 522 car shows, and 19 cruise nights listed.

That should keep you busy during the summer...

Erik...

On CNNMoney, there's a good article from Money Magazine about the rise in popularity of small cars. Maybe people are starting to realize that small does not mean unsafe, as this article, also from CNNMoney states.

But it always cracks me up when someone brings up the safety issue by asking if I would feel safe if I was hit by a big SUV in my MINI. Unless you're driving a Peterbilt or a tank, you're pretty much screwed either way. So I'll take the car that has the best chance of getting out of the way.

Erik...

On June 12th, the 2nd Annual WNY MINI Rally will be held. For more info, here is the official thread. It's only $15 if you pre-register, and from all reports, last year's rally was quite fun, not to mention well done.

Erik...

According to this Yahoo Finance article,

Clarity Technologies Inc. (www.claritytechinc.com ) announced today that its award winning CVC® voice communications software technology embedded in Peiker's Bluetooth hands-free system will be available to more consumers in soon to be released automobiles for the Mini Cooper in the US

With all of the hands-free only laws, it's about time MINI included this option...

Erik...

A few days ago, I received an letter from Land Rover, with 'Statement Enclosed' on the outside of the envelope. Needless to say, I was quite confused, and a bit concerned. My mind was quickly wondering if Land Rover was pulling the old 'Last Notice' b.s. to make you open their advert quickly type of gag, or if I was the victim of a elaborate identity theft scheme. Well, for some reason, BMW decided to use a Land Rover envelope to send me my statement. What? Did they have a bunch of old envelopes laying around that they didn't want destroyed? Weird...

Erik...

I'm concentrating on updating my links/posts right now. In part, due to Bridger.us/mini now becoming motoringfile.com, so some links may work funky.

Sorry for the lack of updates again, I've been putting in major hours at my job lately. So again, this is not an abandoned blog, it's just not always a number one priority... I'll let you know if it ever hits abandoned status.

In other news, I just received my March 2004 Issue of Road and Track today. It's the one with the Mitsubishi Eclipse Concept-E on the cover, with the lead story of 'Hot New Sports Cars'. Much to my pleasure, it had yet another cool MINI advertisement.

Let's Recreate Automotive History* Let's see what this street legal go-cart can do. Let's find a big, empty parking lot. Let's bust out the orange cones. Let's pull out the stopwatch. Let's set a slalom course for adventure. Let's get ready. Let's get set. Let's Motor

*Road & Track puts tons of new cars through their 700ft slalom test to measure handling and agility. It's kind of a big deal. And considering a stock MINI Cooper beat some pretty serious rides, including the Dodge Viper SRT-10 and Porsche 911 Turbo, you may want to tell your friend riding shotgun to eat a very light lunch.

It comes with a foldout with 8 orange cones on double-thick paper, and classic MINIadvert style instructions, including this little helpful hint : Avoid cones like it's your job.

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Another side note: If you use Opera to view this site, the sidebar is split in half, part at the top part of the page, and part at the bottom. If someone has any idea why this is happening, and how I can fix it, I would much appreciate the help. I've tried to figure it out to no avail.

Erik...