This is rather late news, but the MINI Club of WNY has a new official website. We are now at miniclubofwny.activeboard.com. So, if you are a MINI owner in Buffalo, Rochester, Niagara Falls, Boston, or any points in between or nearby, please stop on in. In addition, please keep in mind that it is a community funded messageboard. Without donations, we will lose our URL, and be stuck with the flashing advertising from Sparklit(the forum hosting service).

Huge thanks to YellowMINI who got the ball rolling to get a paid forum.

Erik...

Here's word from Diane:

The site has been discontinued. I am putting the word out that anyone who
wants to start up the website for the club is welcome to it...spread the word that if anyone
is interested in taking care of the website they have my blessings. Thanks,
Diane

First off, I'd like to thank Diane for getting the club off of the ground in the first place. Without her, we wouldn't even have a club to be concerned for. Now, we're left with what to do.

I am more than willing to do my damnedest (so it's not a word, sue me) to get a new site up and running, but I don't have the free money to do it. Nor do I really have any experience setting up and running a web-based message board in the first place. Ideas and help are needed.

Hopefully, this will be a point of discussion at this month's Dinner / Pulley Party. I am hoping to be able to attend, but personal matters may dictate otherwise.

Let me just say for the record that again, I cannot thank Diane enough for getting a club off the ground. I also would like to thank anyone who has put their time into the events that we do, and making the club what it is today. My volunteering to look after a club website is not intended to be some sort of 'power grab' or some way to make a quick buck, but just me doing the best thing that I can think to do to keep our club going.

At the very least, you'll start seeing updates here, and we can use the comments section as a temporary discussion board. As soon as I get a chance, I'll put a link to a free message board that I had on here at one time, as a stop-gap measure.

Erik...

In case you don't know about the MINI's bestest fan, Sarah Trafford, take a look.

Back yet?

Well, although Sarah can't fit her 5'11" frame in a MINI without being hunched over, down in Texarkana, they found their MINI to be quite spacious:

This six-foot writer could have easily worn a Stetson - if he were of such mind - while driving the car.

Damn Sarah, how high IS your hair?

Erik...

This is the second time I've heard that the Cooper will be turbocharged. Personally, I don't see it happening. Why make the Cooper a de-tuned Cooper S? It makes more sense to keep the One a de-tuned Cooper.

The One will produce 115hp and 164Nm of torque (up from 89 and 103), the Cooper 143hp and 247Nm of torque (up from 113 and 110), and the Cooper S 168hp (the same as today's offering). No torque figure is available yet for the S.
The One's 1.6-litre unit will be naturally aspirated, while both Cooper and Cooper S will get turbochargers

Nor does it make sense that the base Cooper engine will be turbocharged, with just a small bump in power, unless, the new engine isn't as nice as we had hoped it would be.

I'm not buying this either...

But also under consideration is a plan to add a second, lower-powered Cooper model, powered by the non-turbo One engine. Fitting between the One and Cooper, it could allow Mini to increase prices for the high-output Cooper and S and fill the gap with a more affordable second Cooper model.

A turbo and a NA Cooper? A lower powered Cooper when it's not getting much of a power boost in the first place?

Key features of the new engines are much better fuel economy and emissions, which will help Mini parent BMW hit the car industry's tough voluntary target of reducing average C02 emissions for all its cars to 140g/km by 2008. The new engines are said to be 10% more efficient.

Not really a 'key feature' for me, and I'm guessing that this could be the 'feature' that's causing all the problems.

Read the full article here, from the Bangkok Post.


Erik...

In case you didn't feel like leaving a comment because you didn't want to deal with the hassle of either signing up for a Blogger account, or being anon, now you don't have to. Another update is that you don't have to click thru 3 full web pages to leave a comment. The comments are on their own page like before, but when you go to leave one now, it's in a pop up window.

I know it's not that exciting, but hey, Blogger is easy to use, and well, that's what matter most to me right now...