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…
For the last several months, I’ve been waffling over replacing my exhaust. I had Dan Zipkin at Grassroots Garage perform the “one-ball” modification on my stock exhaust about a year ago. And for a while, I was quite happy with it. But as I started to see more cars with nice stainless exhausts, I became less satisfied…
Well, I finally spent some time attempting to think rationally about it (yeah, like anything I do regarding this car is RATIONAL…) and realized that I like the way the one-ball sounds (except when it’s cold, and that doesn’t last long), and I don’t expect to get a big performance improvement with a different exhaust, and I like the fact that the one-ball is paid for… I just didn’t like the way it LOOKED…
While I thought the OEM “beer can” tips were cool and understated for a while, I’ve been longing for some more attractive, aggressive slash-cut tips. And I realized the one-ball itself is UGLY… usually some dingy shade of silver/rust/tan, hanging down asymmetrically on the left side…
So I decided to do something about the aesthetics of my one-ball (takes a brave man to say that out loud) without spending the several hundred dollars a replacement exhaust would cost.
About a year ago, I installed a set of Hella 2500 driving lights, in another of many shameless mimics of ImagoX (Matt Cook). It’s almost reached the point of me stalking him, frankly. It’s a little creepy. I can’t wait to see him at MOTD. Oh… maybe I shouldn’t have said that.
Anyhoo, the Hellas were an inexpensive addition that served the intended purpose - they helped light up the road for Midnight on the Dragon.
By the way, that’s ImagoX in the car with the blue lights. He’s my hero.
Oh, where were we? The Hella 2500s have kind of a “floodlight” pattern - they’re good for lighting up the shoulders of the road ahead on my frequent late night attempts to kill deer with my car.
Over the course of the year, I did various modifications to these lights to make them look better and keep out water, and probably drove about 20,000 miles with them on the car. Lately, the paint started peeling off them, and, frankly, they were showing their age in general.
I had been thinking for a while about upgrading to some higher-powered, better-focused, higher-quality driving lights. But I really liked the size of the Hellas about 4″ in diameter, much smaller than may of the better aftermarket lights. I like the size and look of the OEM driving lights (which are 5″), but don’t like the price nor the way they are wired to come on with the high-beams only. I have mine wired to selectively switch between “off”, “on with high beams”, or “on no matter what”. I like having that much control.
I finally settled on the PIAA 540 driving lights. They’re 5″ in diameter, like the OEM lights. OutMotoring sells them as a vehicle-specific set with wiring harness and brackets for the MINI. But I already have the brackets from my Hellas, and planned to use my existing wiring, so I went looking for a good deal on just a pair of lights. I found a set from an Amazon merchant in an open, damaged box, but the lights were new and fine - and about $100 less than usual!
Did a little cutting and soldering to make them work with my existing wiring harness, and cut down the mounting bolts by about 1/2″, and VOILA!
I love the way these look with the blacked-out grille. A big improvement in the front view of the car, I think. I also like that these are not very deep, and mount close to the grille, so they work well from the side view, also.
While they’re not huge lights, they work VERY well. Combined with my Xenons and my 65w high-beams, they light up the road LIKE DAY for over a quarter mile on dark roads at night. And they can nearly melt Chevy Cavaliers in my path. It’s fantastic.
Update: After Ian Cull’s smackdown in the comments, I decided he was right… and my wife agreed… the 540’s were a little too big… then I happened upon a club-mate with PIAA 510’s… which were too small for where he had them mounted on his car… so we swapped… the 510’s are just like the 540’s, but about an inch smaller in diameter.
I’ve been struggling lately.
I love my MINI. I love the color of my MINI. But Cool Blue is just kinda weird. It doesn’t lend itself to some treatments that I think look AWESOME on other colors. Example: The Aero Grilles. I just don’t think they’ll look good on my car. I love them on everybody else’s car. But there’s just something “whimsical” about the combination of my color and the whole Union Jack theme that I have going. And it needs a little chrome to work, and I don’t think it works as well with some of the things that look cool on other cars - like aero kits and aero grilles.
Recently I tried out one of Matt Cook’s (ImagoX) stainless steel grilles. I really like the way these look on every other car where I’ve seen them installed. But they aren’t the right look for Blimey…
See? Doesn’t work. Wouldn’t work if it were a different color, either. I was discussing this with Matt, and he remarked, “Yeah, you have a lot going on on the front of your car.”
No doubt. Trademark Union Jack lower grille. Which is not going away. Ever. Driving lights. Grille badge. Chrome. Custom stripes. And Cool Blue, which is NOT a basic color…
It’s too busy. Damn it. I hate to say it, but it’s true. But I don’t want to give up anything… so now what?
Well, while I don’t think the aero grille is the right look, I DO think maybe the front of the car could do with less Cool Blue… so I took another page out of Matt’s playbook, and decided to try something…
I got a roll of Trimbrite Blackout Tape. This stuff is 1-3/8″ wide and 20′ long for about four bucks. It’s a nice matte black vinyl, that matches the black plastic trim of the MINI well. And it’s the PERFECT width for blacking out the slatted grille. I got mine from AutoBarn, but some folks have reported finding it at their local Pep Boys.
Removed the lights and grille badge holder, cleaned everything up, got an X-acto knife and a bamboo barbecue skewer and a pair of scissors, and 30 minutes later…
I like this MUCH better. It makes the grille area better match the open scoop, and it makes the UJ lower grille really “pop”. While it doesn’t look like it in this pic, the color of the vinyl is a good match for the trim/splitter below the UJ grille. Especially after I re-treat it with Black Wow.
I applied this “dry” - others have said it’s easier to do “wet” (using a spray of very diluted soap underneath, and a squeegee), but I had no problems - the width is perfect, and it’s easy to stretch and massage it into place to match the curve of the slats if you take your time. I use a bamboo grill skewer to work the vinyl into the corners at the end of the slats (careful - don’t poke a hole in it), then use a VERY sharp X-acto knife to carefully trim it in place.
Want to see how it looks with the lights re-installed? Well, read my next post…