peel
Part of things
Posts: 126
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Following on from the VW thread, I thought it'd be good to pick your brains and try to put Mini culture in a bit of context. I guess we had 60s coolness followed by 70s cheap second-hand Cooper fun, all basking in the glow of motorsport success. Then came the 80s, at the end of which ARG finally woke up and relaunched the Cooper. So let's have your memories of the 60s, 70s and 80s - what were the 'must-have' mods etc. What was the scene like? Anyone got pics? Oh and how did we end up with a VW following that has excellent gatherings resembling rock festivals while Mini shows are all about people dressing up in 'hilarious' costumes and covering their cars in cardboard to make them look like pirate ships, tanks etc etc? Thanks. Have a pic of a wild-looking custom Clubby
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horney™
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,289
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In my opinion mate one thing needs to happen and that is for the Bini to be accepted with open arms and embraced. The mix of old and new should kick start from fresh thinking in mini circles and hopefully some slightly more cool and happening shows.
It won't happen though, people like my wife just can't see past the owners of the company to find that the owners of the cars are a sound bunch.
i find it slightly sad you're more likely to see a Bini at a german car meet than at a mini meet.
Nick
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rysz
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,558
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In my opinion mate one thing needs to happen and that is for the Bini to be accepted with open arms and embraced. The mix of old and new should kick start from fresh thinking in mini circles and hopefully some slightly more cool and happening shows. It won't happen though, people like my wife just can't see past the owners of the company to find that the owners of the cars are a sound bunch. I find it slightly sad you're more likely to see a Bini at a german car meet than at a mini meet. Nick Completely agree, I stopped going to the local mini club after the die hards got their knckers in a twist over the bini... They banned them from the club and they where not allowed at meets either! Madness! Bit sad really as it should have been exactly as you say but everyone was upset with BMW for killing off the old car that had fundamentally not changed for 40 odd years! What a lot of people don't realise is that BMW spent a fortune on keeping the classic mini going for so long with regards to emissions standards IIRC. Rysz.
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Last Edit: Oct 6, 2008 14:00:46 GMT by rysz
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Mini culturebriandamaged
@GUEST
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I've had loads of Minis in the past, and at the time of the launch of New MINI I was on the committee of my local Mini OC. I thought it was utterly amazing that there was so much antipathy towards the new car, both from members of my own club and outside. I can clearly remember someone turning up in a Bini at the main entrance at Trevelgue on the 2002 Riviera Run and recieving the kind of vitriolic hysterical bile-filled reception from one middle-aged woman that made me think that maybe Gary Glitter was at the helm, navigated by Fred West with Peter Sutcliffe serving the tea in the back. Having said all that I didn't really find the Mini 'Scene' any different from any other, populated as so many of them are by cliques and little Hitlers and bulls**t fashion 'rules'. Although I remember the jester's hats and inevitable Union Jack bunting got on my nerves after a while! Just as you have rows and rows of Cooperlikes at Mini shows you have rows of slammed Mk2 Golfs on ATS Classics at VW shows and 97% of the worlds Minilite production appears at Old Skool Ford meets of a weekend, it's all the same...... I've got friends who have encountered similar attitudes in Rod clubs as well, which is why I don't bother with clubs any more to be honest.
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slater
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,390
Club RR Member Number: 78
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Mini cultureslater
@slater
Club Retro Rides Member 78
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Minis are strange, i do know quite a few hot girls that drive them yet the scene is a pile of curse word??
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Agree with everything Brian said. I got compleatly f**ked off with the mini 'scene' and left it. The last show I went to had a lot of people not really liking the Clubman becasue it wasn't a shiny paint job and not standard. We just brought some bits I needed and went. Didn't even take one photo as everything there was near enough the same as the one next to it.
I once-upon-a-time had a MINI and was hated by the club I was with at the time, in particular one woman. Was considering changing my name back to Hitler after attending some shows in it. When I said I was selling it, the woman that gave me so much curse word about it very quietly when no-one else was around asked if I would sell it to her. No was the short answer.
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Last Edit: Oct 6, 2008 18:16:11 GMT by MiniDan
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My first car was a Mini, loved it, but never went to any clubs in it. On the Bini? (no, just new Mini) my opinion is they are like the New beetle at Vw shows, it's not that they aren't welcome, but to turn up in your fresh from the showroom brand new car and put it in the Show and Shine just seems like a bit of a curse word take to me?
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OAP drifta Volvo 340,Williams power 1960 Beetle twin 40's 1776cc
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Davenger
Club Retro Rides Member
It's only metal
Posts: 7,272
Club RR Member Number: 140
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Mini cultureDavenger
@dminifreak
Club Retro Rides Member 140
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The mini scene has been ruined by blinkered, narrow minded fools who give the majority a bad name. Most mini owners are fine, but some are just idiots
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Last Edit: Oct 6, 2008 18:10:46 GMT by Davenger
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Llewellyn
Part of things
Captain Slow
Posts: 330
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I have to agree that the mini scene is lacking somewhat and having been around the dub scene recently, there are certainly a few things the mini scene could learn from the dub guys. As for bini hatred its stupid, as the new mini has brought many a new person to the scene and has injected some life back into it. I still don't like them, but they should be welcomed not pushed away. Now for a dash of self publicity Jim
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^^^^^^MAXIMUM BIG-HERO LIFT-OFF OVERSTEER POINTS^^^^^^
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Mini culturebriandamaged
@GUEST
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^^^^^^MAXIMUM BIG-HERO LIFT-OFF OVERSTEER POINTS^^^^^^ ;D
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Davenger
Club Retro Rides Member
It's only metal
Posts: 7,272
Club RR Member Number: 140
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Mini cultureDavenger
@dminifreak
Club Retro Rides Member 140
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BALLS OF STEEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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craig1010cc
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,998
Club RR Member Number: 35
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Mini culturecraig1010cc
@craig1010cc
Club Retro Rides Member 35
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I've been a member of minis clubs for years (on-line and local) and generally everything is fine. You do get some right kn*bs, but i think you get that in most clubs, car or otherwise. Trying to do something new with mini's is dificult, and it takes the likes of slater and his mini to get people looking around outside the 'norm' to find something new (i still like the idea of building a UPS clubby van ) and there are alot of sports-pack cooper rep's, oftenly because (IMO) that it the owner wants a cooper sports pack and can't afford to buy/ insure one so they build one that looks like one. There is some Bini bashing that goes on (we welcome them in west country minis), but it is normally tongue in cheek. i was involved with the Bini when it was being developed and loved the styling from the first pre-prod one i saw. BMW's reasoning for keeping the mini going for the final year was mainly based on the fact that they didn't have a replacement ready, and they wanted to move the mini up from a cheap run-a-bout to a niche car like the new beatle. I am glad they did though. Most of the hostility is aimed at BMW for the aggressive way that they went after the mini specalists threatening them with legal action unless they stopped using the word mini in their names (they did the same i believe with morris minors).
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I thought it was only me that felt like this about the mini scene.for the past few years i have slowly become bored of it now,i still love my mini more than ever but the whole show thing is really getting on my nerves.As for the club side of it well i'm in a local club i've been a member since 2000 and have seen it really change in the last 2 years.Its got nothing to do with the couple that run it,its more to do with the newer members.For example on my last visit to the club get together i was the first one there so i order my drink and as i'm being served i spot a couple that have recently joined and who know i'm a member so when i get my drink i walk over to the mand have them both look at me like curse word and turn their backs to me WTF.then theres a new guy who joined aswell with a well sorted MOKE who IMO is very arrogant and constantly reminds everyone about the cost to build.As for the cost of shows and parts its getting out of control people are just too greedy when it comes to buying 2nd hand parts,and don't even try to haggle with them.Overall i'm just not happy to go anymore,theres a show coming up at the end of the month at newark its a new show this year i'm going to give it a go and see.Is anyone going to it?
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Mini culturebriandamaged
@GUEST
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I thought it was only me that felt like this about the mini scene.for the past few years I have slowly become bored of it now,i still love my mini more than ever but the whole show thing is really getting on my nerves.As for the club side of it well i'm in a local club i've been a member since 2000 and have seen it really change in the last 2 years.Its got nothing to do with the couple that run it,its more to do with the newer members.For example on my last visit to the club get together I was the first one there so I order my drink and as i'm being served I spot a couple that have recently joined and who know i'm a member so when I get my drink I walk over to the mand have them both look at me like curse word and turn their backs to me WTF.then theres a new guy who joined aswell with a well sorted MOKE who IMO is very arrogant and constantly reminds everyone about the cost to build.As for the cost of shows and parts its getting out of control people are just too greedy when it comes to buying 2nd hand parts,and don't even try to haggle with them.Overall i'm just not happy to go anymore,theres a show coming up at the end of the month at newark its a new show this year i'm going to give it a go and see.Is anyone going to it? Sounds familiar....the end for me came when we organised a reasonably successful weekend Mini show and on the day I overheard the guy tasked with arranging our club stand saying that he was going to put all his mates cars on the front row and, I quote, "all the rubbish can go at the back". That was the end of me and clubs, right there.
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One positive thing i will say about the club i'm in is that kind of thing would'nt happen(yet) but give it time.
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I was into the mini scene maybe 12 years ago and it was "ok". Yeah, there were bobble-hat wearing rivit-counters who would happily tell you how your car has the wrong screws holding the grill on etc etc, but it was a laugh. People were interesting and welcomed newcomers. I fell out of the scene due to changing cars etc, and now I find myself back into it all with my latest project. TBH though, the new mini "scene" is not one I want to get involved in. BMW hating - these fuds need to get a grip on reality...so bmw have taken the name and concept and remarketed it at a certain consumer group......so what? the hatred I occasionally see on some forums towards this car and its owners astounds me, it really shocks me. "OMG its bigger than an astra....alec issigonis would be turning in his grave blah blah blah blah blah" ad fooking infinitum. Tedious to say the least. Mini shows - they are RUBBISH. Compare a mini show to an equivelant VW show and the VW event comes out tops in all respects. Mini shows are expensive, samey and very, very cliquey. The ranges of people in attendance, the entertainment, the cars and the parts for sale at VW shows is just much better. The organisers of mini shows would do well to attend vanfest or something similar to see how it should be done. The snobbery - my van project isnt all that radical, but it certainly isnt the "conventional" way to do a restoration. I have posted my build threads on here and one of the mini forums and got a good response, although I had initialy posted it on some other mini forums, I quickly gave up....either my name/face didnt fit with the leading clique, therefor no-one was interested, or the purists got their panties twited due to mY methods "How dare you ruin a van like that" was one comment I got.
I intend to build my van how I want it. if people like it, fine. If people don't like it...well, fine. If they have constructive comments, I am happy to hear them, but if they want to curse word and moan for the sake of hearing their own voices trot out the same cliches they can get bent.
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1986 Panda 4x4. 1990 Metro Sport. 1999 Ford Escort estate.
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I had a mini based kit car that i used to enter the shows with (more to get a secure parking space than any thing else) And took a second prize on the L2B in 2003 only because Monty Watkins (editor of mini world and before that kit car mag ) knew what it was. At another show my then girlfriend was looking on the club stand and overheard the judges say " well that can't win it looks nothing like a mini " I came second (draw your own conclusions) and on another occasion was docked 20 points for not "looking like a mini", despite being in the mini based kit car category. I think that because in a field of minis it stood out like a sore thumb they didn't like it. Heres a pic, draw your own conclusions, Unwelcome monstrosity that has no place at a mini show?. Or a little variety in an other wise mini car park?.
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Mini shows - they are RUBBISH. Compare a mini show to an equivelant VW show and the VW event comes out tops in all respects. Mini shows are expensive, samey and very, very cliquey. exactly - this is why I now pick and choose a few mini shows to do. this year I did the stanford hall, gaydon festival and avon park.
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That mini based kit car is not my sort of thing but yeah it would break the bordom of any mini show,in fact when i was at this years stanford hall the best car of the show for me was a yellow Unipower GT.
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I used to be a part of the same Mini scene as Peel and Horney and on more than one one occasion declared that I wasn't going to club events if I had to wear fancy dress because I'd feel and look like a curse word. The organisers gave me a dispensation not to on one occasion.
My experience of Mini shows is that they are curse word. Same venues (curse word agricultural sites), same traders selling the same shiny tat and overpriced 2nd hand Joe Lucas scrap and the same cars. Minilites as far as the eye can see, white roofs, Union Jacks Grp2 arches or sportspacks.
Poncing around in platform shoes and 70s disco wigs really doesn't add to the atmosphere. If anything it makes the whole thing a bit cheesy and lacking in credibility.
I never got the hatred of the BINI either to be honest. I was told it was because of the way BMW treated Rover. As far as I know that involved giving it away to four guys who were expected to run it well along with a load of stock and actual cash money. That the saviours of Rover sold off everything worth having then declared bankruptcy when they couldn't fleece anyone else is hardly BMW's fault. And I don't see anyone shying away from Nissan Skylines or Honda Type-Rs because of their treatment of British prisoners in WWII.
They then they said it was because BMW stopped non-heritage suppliers using Rover brand names. Though as I recall, this happened before BMW took over.
It's a fact that if Rover had built the BINI it would have been curse word rather than the success it is.
When I announced that I was painting my Mini they all said "ooh Primrose Yellow is nice". I did mine in Fiat Broom Yellow and they looked at me like I was mad.
The other problem is the dreaded scene tax. In the for sale section of this very forum there's a MKII Golf GTI in solid looking nick for £350. A Mini the same age with some test will be a grand even if the front end is falling off.
I think the American car scene has, to some extent, a similar lack of credibility with all those clowns swaggering about in cowboy hats, stetsons and Burt Reynolds fit jeans with their gut hanging over the top.
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Jaguar S-Type 3.0 SE
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