sheesh get over it aready..the badge on the front says MINI so its a MINI. End of story, like it or not its a MINI. Yes its not exactly the same as the mini but its called progress. If you dont like them, you dont like them.

Fair enough everyone is entitled to their opinion but I dont know one MINI owner who doesnt think its the best damm car they have ever owned in their life. I myself have owned many mini's over the years and would have one of both in the garage if "she who must be obeyed" would allow it

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1965 Riley Elf
1974 Ex Army Moke
1997 Rover Cooper
2002 JCW Cooper
2003 JCW Cooper S

in name only
(a poor fitting name)

So if I wack a cooper s badge on pug it's a cooper s ? Don't get me wrong the new BMW MINI is a great little car albeit overpriced/under warrantied but it's definately not a Mini to me in any way whatsoever but yes if someone wanted to give me one I'd happily drive it

well it's a MINI to me, and the 600+ other MINI owners here in Perth alone would agree with me. Sorry I just think it's retarded this whole "it aint a mini" thing. Almost as retarded as the idiots that feel the need to have a sticker on the back of their mini bagging the MINI.

Every MINI owner I know loves the mini too, infact some are lucky enough to have one of each. One thing I can tell you never happens at clubMNI events is the bagging of the mini.

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1965 Riley Elf
1974 Ex Army Moke
1997 Rover Cooper
2002 JCW Cooper
2003 JCW Cooper S

we're not bagging it as a car, just bagging the fact they called a normal sized car a "mini"

who gives a rats ass if its slightly bigger, its still smaller then my mums echo, they look cool, they handle and drive well they are everything the mini was built to be origionally with modern refinement...

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Potato

No they didn't call it a mini, they called it a MINI.

My thoughts:
The MINI really is a mini. No doubt about it. Anyone who has sat in one will realise there is absolutely no room inside there to do anything other than move a steering wheel. They break down, have dodgy electrics and parts are over priced these days.
How more mini could it be?

I'm not a 100% purist for the original *ducks for cover*, I plan on getting a newy in the near future myself. The manufacturers wouldn't have been able to make the car any smaller than it is now without ditching the back seats or ignoring safety regulations.

Had two things been different, the car might not be getting the crap from the mini owners it occasionly does. 1. the price for the base model, and 2. the parent company, though I don't look at them as BMWs because they aren't. Thats who owns them. Like Ford with Mazda.

Have to agree with Harley on the price of the base model.
In Europe they get the MINI ONE and the ONE D and the Cooper base model has a lot less standard equipment than the Aussie Cooper.
So the MINI is much more affordable over there.

but they're twice the size, and they're still cramped?
its simply not true that they couldnt make it any smaller, there are heaps of new cars that are smaller. But they didnt want to make it smaller, they wanted it more practical.. but thats what makes the original mini special in the first place, kind of like having gull wing doors on a lambourghini. They're not practical, but they make it special.

you are right about the price, the base model would help considerably about the negative price image.
I don't have any problems with bmw though.

The old mini was NOT built for handling, performance.
It was a solution to the fuel crisis back in the late 50s.
Jeeez

On the whole BMW thing - In its short life my car has half a dozen day trips to the dealer. They always provide me with a loan car (how nice!) and it is generally a BMW.

My comment when returning the loan car and picking mine up is always "thanks for the loaner, it was very nice to have but was terrible to drive. NOW GIVE ME BACK MY MINI!.... please" They claim that I am entirely too hard to impress. But a BMW has no character or personality about it. Every loan MINI I have driven certainly does.

Its like the difference between AAMI and Shannons. Both owned by the same company - catering to two very different markets with two very different products.

My first car was a 1968 Corolla. First one made by Toyota. The last hire car I had was a 2005 Corolla. Comparing the corolla to the mini for a second - the size has increased by the same percentage, as have the creature comforts and the power. (Okay, the MINI price tag cannot be defended, except to say that for the amount of enjoyment I have wrung out of the car, it was worth every.goddamn.cent).

First MINI I ever saw was a flash through the scrub as one went the other way up the expressway. Would not have even seen it for a second, yet I instantly recognised it as a MINI. Not being into cars back then, I didn't know that it had been reintroduced and was new on the market. I did know though, that I had to have one the minute I clapped eyes on it.

I love my BINI, you all love your minis. How about we agree on that and just agree to disagree on the rest of the bollocks?

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Sounds fair to me. Each to his own...

but I'd still like to have both

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Too many cars, and too little time.

maybe not built to be but they were.. jeeeeezz and they were built to beat the bubble car that was becomeing ever popular at the time because of the fuel crisis.

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Potato