… and now I have a pair!
Yesterday I tore down Blimey and installed a pair of Koni FSD struts and Ireland Engineering fixed camber plates. I’ve been eyeing the Koni’s for a while, hoping to get a deal. A used set recently came up for sale on NAM and I grabbed them. I figured, while I had the front struts out, it was the right time to add camber plates if I was ever going to do it. So I ordered a new pair of Ireland Engineering plates as well. All this stuff sat in my garage for a couple of weeks before I could get time to install them.
Had a great run last weekend with the Tar Heel MINIs, plus a few others from around the country who came to join us. Many folks met Thursday night in Waynesboro, VA at the northern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway and started out on Friday morning. Work intruded on fun for me, so I couldn’t get away until mid afternoon on Friday, and met up with everyone for dinner Friday night in Sparta, NC. Had a great day of driving on Saturday, spend Saturday night in Asheville, and Sunday morning drove the rest of the way to the southern end of the Parkway in Cherokee, NC. Sunday afternoon, I led a small group on the “long way” home, up to Waynesville, NC and down the insanely awesome NC215 on what we dubbed Blimey’s Tour of Terror. Gawd, I love that road… climbs 3000 vertical feet to the Blue Ridge Parkway at Devil’s Courthouse, then drops 3000 feet on the other side. 35 miles of twisty bliss.
In specifying and modifying my MINI, I’ve paid a lot of attention to the man/machine interfaces:
- Spec’ed leather seats - because I like the way they feel.
- Ditched the rubber mats for coco mats - partially because of the feel of the rubber mats
- Replaced my OEM tach/speedo domes with Optium to reduce glare.
- Wrapped my steering wheel with a wheelskin for improved fattness and feel.
- Replaced the OEM Armrest with the Euro Armrest to match my elbow position.
- Modified my fire extinguisher mount to be exactly the right extension and height.
- Carefully positioned my GPS, phone, radar detector controls, G-Timer, ScanGauge, driving light switch, etc. for optimal usage.
- Replaced the OEM shift knob and e-brake handles with skull knob and aluminum UJ handles - for both feel and appearance.
- Wrapped the Chrono Pack face with black satin vinyl to reduce glare and improve eye-appeal of the gauge cluster.
- Added the Euro Parcel Shelf for easy-to-reach storage.
- Added the MCAW window circuit to make it easier and quicker to control my windows.
But there was still one major interface I hadn’t done anything about - the foot/pedal interface…
Given that I have two kids, the MINI cabrio is much more practical for my family than a two-seater would be… but that doesn’t mean it’s totally practical. While we can - and have - packed everything we needed for an overnighter in to the boot, if we’re going to be gone for more than one night, this just isn’t feasible, given how much my family loves their “stuff”… See? not much room in there…
For last year’s trip to MOTD, I installed a MiniDoMore hitch and used a Cargo Buddy platform and weatherproof cargo bag. This is a great setup for a couple of nights, or for longer trips when we can pack light. But this year we were going to MOTD for five days and four nights, and I wanted to take LOTS of MINI-related stuff, and car wash / detailing supplies, and beer, and…. you get the point. So I needed a more voluminous option….
I was at MOTD6 this past week. It was a blast. I drove the Dragon several more times. Including at night, which is when I really enjoy it… though I enjoy other roads there even more, like NC28 (”Hellbender”). But the Dragon is definitely very technically challenging, and frankly can be pretty treacherous, as my friends Matt and Kara can attest. But I was looking for a different kind of challenge….
For the last couple of years, I had noticed a strange “path” at about milepost 4 on the Dragon… in the middle of a hairpin curve called “Parson’s Curve”. The path had a gate across it, and a Do Not Enter sign. Last year, there was always road equipment or a truck parked there, blocking the path. I was always curious what that thing was, and where it went.
While some of the early MINIs had “anemic” horns, the horn in my 2006 just sounds… average.
Average in every way. Volume, tone, resonance… it sounds pretty much like every “normal” car horn out there.
I guess I shouldn’t complain. Some owners of early MINIs have complained that nobody can hear their little toy-car-sounding “beep beep”. Other people can certainly hear my horn. They just don’t care very much. When I sound the horn, their response is:
1) Think, “Hmmm. Somebody in some kind of car is honking their horn.”
2) Think, “Hmmm. I wonder why they’re honking it.”
3) Think, “Hmmm. I wonder if they’re honking at ME?”
4) Turn to look and see where it’s coming from and whether it might have something to do with THEM.
And, of course, by this time I have already used my cat-like reflexes and the MINI’s legendary agility to evade whatever idiotic thing they were doing that made me honk in the first place.
If they’re, say, pedestrians crossing against the light, they look up and say “Oh, it’s just one of those clown cars” and keep right on doing what they’re doing.
See? Worthless.
The PDX (Portland) MINI Club took a weekend trip to one of my favorite places last fall - Orcas Island. Orcas is the largest of the San Juan Islands, in the northern end of Puget Sound. There are no bridges to the San Juans… so most people arrive there by ferry (private boat and small plane are your other options).
As much as I’d like to take this same trip, it’s a bit far to drive (about 3.000 miles each way). So I started thinking about what we could do closer to home that would have a similar “cool” factor. Well, North Carolina has its own gem of an island - Ocracoke. This former stomping ground of Blackbeard the Pirate has a lovely little village and 16 miles of the most beautiful undeveloped beaches in the United States. I polled our local club and lots of people were interested in a weekend run to Ocracoke - so we scheduled one! It’s pretty much impossible to get lodging for large groups during the season - so we picked one of the last “pre-season” weekends.
Blimey was still clean from the car show yesterday, and it was beautiful today - so I went for a drive and shot some pics. They’re on the NEW “Blimey Photos” page!
Some members of our club got us into the Raleigh St. Patricks Day parade today - and also got us invited to enter a car show being run as part of an event at a local shopping area. The parade was a blast - most folks decorated their cars for the occasion (some more than others) and we drove the route in “S” curves… it was like being in the “Italian Job”, but in super-slow-mo… the crowd loved it!
I’m still loving my Redline Goods custom shift and brake boots. They really helped bring the Union Jack color scheme inside the car.
I recently replaced my OEM armrest with the MINI aftermarket armrest - it sits higher and is a better anatomical fit for me, and works better, and I think looks better, and liberates the rear cupholder. But it came with a cheap black vinyl pad on top, that didn’t match my seats or anything else in my car. I just HAD to do something about that…
So I contacted Maciek at Redline Goods - but they had never seen one of these armrests before. He agreed to make me a cover for it - but I had to send the pad from my armrest TO POLAND to have it fitted… so I did. A few weeks later, I had this:
Much better than the black pad! This is an easy swap - there are six screws that hold the pad on the lid, and the cover just wraps around and sticks to the pad backer with double sided tape. Redline Goods has a template for this now - so you can just order the cover for the MINI Euro Armrest - no shipping to Poland necessary!
Of course, I couldn’t stop there… so I also had him make me some covers for the door armrests. Blimey’s Union Jackification is nearly complete!
Looks GREAT to me… really livens up the interior, and makes everything look like a package. Ties the stripes, grille and external Union Jacks to the interior. And the door armrests make the entry to the car look like it should, IMHO.
It’s taken almost a year and a half - but Blimey’s UJ theme is finally just about “there”… now time to do more with the engine bay…