I was in Cleveland on Sunday and from the hell that was raining down that morning I can believe cars are falling from the sky.

I think a lot of people tend to forget that Mini is and always has been BMW’s lifestyle brand. The Bavarian’s bought Rover to get at two things: Land Rover’s expertise, and Mini. They weren’t interested in city cars, they just wanted the badge and the cache that came with it. One could argue that since Mini became…

Its a trim level on a brand new generation that only launched a handful of years ago. Again, car companies do it all the dang time. The last time that badge was applied to a Mini, there hadn’t been any meaningful changes in 30 years!

Plus, they already did this with the Mini in the 90's. The Mk7 base trim was the Seven. Car companies resurrect badges and trim levels all the time. Why is it so egregious when Mini does it?

I don’t think I’ll ever see this movie, but damn if it wouldn’t annoy me to see the duplicate ‘hero’ cars have different wheels!

Came here to say exactly this. There’s at least 10 years between their designs.

Hell, there’s one in our town! When we moved here, we were excited that there was a bookstore a stone’s throw from where we lived. And then we walked in and realized it was where Mills and Boon’s come to die. I didn’t have the courage to buy it, but the best I saw was one of a series about suburban moms who just…

Hooray, more propaganda

My wife’s Honda Fit was just added to the list of cars affected by the Takata recall. We’re picking up a rented loaner from the dealer tomorrow for the as yet unknown amount of time it’ll take for the parts to be available for the fix, which is projected to be in the summer.

As much as I loved this show, it’s extremely hard to take his acting struggles seriously when he’s clearly extremely well-off. I mean, his apartment makes the one they had in friends look like a slum. I will say though, the episode highlighting casting racism was brilliant.

Careful. Rabbits in Scotland can be unpredictable...

As someone who knows nothing about Manning, or the sport on general, what in the hell financial trouble and/or ridiculous lifestyle does he have to fund that he stoops to this kind of commercial sluttery?

If you’re able to dig any more up, it’d be great to hear! And while I’m sure there isn’t more to it than a few greased hands and a truck load of half-finished cars leaving amicably, I like to imagine Neerpasch and co. slipping into the factory in the dead of night, stealing the prototypes, and making a run for the…

I don’t know if it would have been a better Mini though. We’ve all heard the story that Ford bought a Mini, stripped it bare, and concluded that BMC were losing money on every car sold. Had the MIni a hatchback, it would have cost even more and may not have been the success it was. I also have to wonder what a…

Top Gear magazine had an excellent article years back about the history of the M1. I seem to recall from it when Lamborghini went broke they locked the M1 prototypes up in their factory and BMW basically had to break in to get their cars back.

About 7 years ago, just after my (now) wife had moved over to Scotland to study, her former roommate, who was herself studying in Paris, came over a Christmas to visit. After a week, the old roommate wanted to spend a couple of days at the Samye Ling monestary in the Borders, and I agreed to drive her down so my wife…

Every office I’ve ever worked in has always used the previous version of Windows. The thinking goes that all the kinks and bugs are worked out by the time they switch to the next version. I’m guessing they might skip over 8 though...

Almost as lovely as the Paul Smith Art Mini was the production version. Rather than a technicolor dreamcoat the Mini Cooper Paul Smith came in this delicious livery:

It’s more enticing than anything they’ve done in years, but every time I see it, I just think it looks like a rejected design for the Jaguar XJ

My wife and I did exactly this twoish months ago and we’re happy. We got a solid deal on a 2 year old Honda Fit that runs like a top. Frankly the only bad part of it was the hassle we had buying the car, and that was simply due to incompetence from the sales staff.