smac wrote:
Am I the only one that thinks this thing is **** ugly??
I'm up there with the biggest lego fans, but seriously I think they dropped the ball on this one - it looks more like a jeep wrangler or a hard topped moke than a mini!

Considering it is a rover it isn't too bad, I agree it could have been way better but if you look at the corporate model of Lego I don't think it was on the cards for it to be much better. The shape of the mini is all wrong and lego aims not to produce one off bricks for sets if possible (it saves money) so you have to build from existing bricks where possible, tie that in with number of bricks in the box, price people are willing to pay and licensing fee (yes this is a licensed set) and that determines how close to original you get.
Look at the Hippy van for example, it is pretty good as it has mostly share shapes and regular curves and is pretty big. The VW Bettle on the other hand...... lets just say the mini is pretty

(there was also a bit of a licensing argument on that one I believe....) But for an official set I think it is pretty good, certainly could be better but lets face it we have been waiting how long for Lego to make one?
If you want to make a mini that looks more realistic then the one from this page is by far the closest I have found so far but you have to source the parts yourself and there are a lot of them as it is big!
http://www.bricksetforum.com/discussion/14663/the-brickset-builders-guild-share-your-mocs-here