Why don't more men drive Minis?

[mustang1]

Now, if it was a proper Mini

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(yes, I know it's a Countryman, in the pictures)


Some people think that SMART is a triumph of packaging, but the original Mini is about 7inches longer than a SMART, & a 4-seater (plus, carries their luggage)

You should post a PIC of the average guy in the 1960s (probably slim) compared to a guy these days (probably fat). So in net terms the new Mini has actually shrunk!

 

[mr messy]

Getting from the top of a multistorey carpark to the bottom in as quick a time as possible, filled with 5 adults, tyres squealing, exhaust roaring, setting off every car alarm on the way, the joys of a real Mini...can feel myself welling up now

 

[Bromptonaut]

There's a whole generation of us here born in fifties/sixties for whom the original (Issigonis) Mini was, in some combination, the car we learned on, cut our teeth on or first owned. The current version is just another modern runabout.

 

[hobo]

Mini campers, nice.

 

[Mr Celine]

When I was a boy there were two types of toy cars, Matchbox and Dinky. You couldn't play with both at the same time because Dinky cars were a larger scale than Matchbox ones and looked daft alongside them.

The BMW Mini is a Dinky car in a Matchbox world. It just looks daft.

Men are more likely to have played with toy cars so are less likely to drive a real one that looks so out of scale with everything else.

 

[TVC]

Mini campers, nice.
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My eldest brother (15 years senior) had one of these in the early 70s when he was first married. He would take it on jaunts around Scotland and Wales from his home in Redcar. I asked him about it recently and apparently only 9 were made. The mini part of it was fine, but the coachbuilt camper bit was very badly made and basically it just collapsed in the end. He sold someone the engine and dumped the rest at the scrapyard.

 

[slowmotion]

Today's Mini's are just huge! They look like a small Land Rover Discovery. I went from Heathrow to Oban in 1972 in a Mini. It was cripplingly uncomfortable. I seriously doubted my future mobility when I emerged, doubled up in pain, at the end of the trip.
I quite fancy a Fiat 500 but they simply stop when you reach a hill. Great fun otherwise. Of course, they will rust away sharpish....

 

[TVC]

I'm not sure a Mini Countryman can be called a mini, it might have a mini shape, but it's not true to the spirit.

Anyway, no modern car can be compared to the vehicles of our dewey eyed past. Put a Mk2 Escort next to a focus it looks puny, even a Mk1 Golf is tiny against its modern version. Safety regs mean that doors are thicker, pillars have to survive a roll over and bits have to collapse. There is no way a proper mini would ever be licensed for sale now.

 

[slowmotion]

I'm not sure a Mini Countryman can be called a mini, it might have a mini shape, but it's not true to the spirit.

Anyway, no modern car can be compared to the vehicles of our dewey eyed past. Put a Mk2 Escort next to a focus it looks puny, even a Mk1 Golf is tiny against its modern version. Safety regs mean that doors are thicker, pillars have to survive a roll over and bits have to collapse. There is no way a proper mini would ever be licensed for sale now.

When the original Mini wiped the board in the Monte Carlo rally in the 60's, didn't the perfidious French disqualify it for not being a proper car? That's probably a petrol-head myth, but one that English schoolboys embraced at the time.

 

[TVC]

When the original Mini wiped the board in the Monte Carlo rally in the 60's, didn't the perfidious French disqualify it for not being a proper car? That's probably a petrol-head myth, but one that English schoolboys embraced at the time.

I hope that's true.

At this point I am in serious danger of heading off to the Autotrader web page, unless anyone knows where else to search out mint condition Minis and Moggies.

 

[slowmotion]

I hope that's true.

At this point I am in serious danger of heading off to the Autotrader web page, unless anyone knows where else to search out mint condition Minis and Moggies.

Lookee here.....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/21/newsid_2506000/2506863.stm

 

[TVC]

Lookee here.....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/21/newsid_2506000/2506863.stm

Bless 'em. Thanks

 

[swee'pea99]

The story that they lost money on every one they made is unconfirmed; Ford bought one and took it apart, and concluded that they were losing £30 on every one. But that was only their opinion; it might have been the case, or it might not, but BMC maintained that it turned a profit.

The external seams were there in order to make it easier to build abroad using CKD kits.

Either way, the finances are a whole separate issue. They may have had crap accountants, but it was still one of the great cars. And it was truly of its era, in a way no other car has ever been - in an egalitarian decade, it was the first car driven by schoolteachers and rock stars, the first car you could drive to the chip shop or the Ritz. There's never been anything else like it. (FWIW I quite like the new one - I think they've done a great job of retaining much of the feel of the original. I can see why they've been so popular. It's only a shame that it took a German company to do it.)

 

[Gravity Aided]

The other day, at an intersection, I saw both old and new minis, side by side, for comparison. Odd thing to see an original mini in the States, but I know of a couple locally. Quite the difference in size, shape, and finish.

 

[swee'pea99]

I've just remembered when my friend Jill had hers serviced by Ray, our friendly local Vietnamese mechanic, who was cheap as chips, spoke pidgin English, and had a name so complicated no-one ever used more than the first syllable. When she picked it up, she took it for a test ride, came back from round the block, and said the speedo still wasn't working. He gave her one of the most contemptuous looks I've ever seen, and snarled: "You no gon speed in tha"