Liam,
I agree, but I think it is the number of places that the oil comes
from that really qualifies it. (No doubt about mine.)
Mark
Mark Darley
markdarley@mac.com
415 381 5452
On Jan 31, 2011, at 4:00 PM, Liam O'Flaherty wrote:
> I thought British cars were classified as the ones that leave oil
> spots in
> your driveway.
> Seems simple to me.
> Liam
> On Jan 31, 2011, at 3:29 PM, Clif & Deborah Williamson wrote:
>
>> Works for me. I will have to come up with a category for non
>> British,
> British cars. Any ideas. Sounds like a fun event. Where is it?
>> Clif
>> 74 JH
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message----- From: Peter Ziedrich
>> Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 2:51 PM
>> To: 'North Bay British Car Club'
>> Subject: Re: [Nobbc] More than you want to know about Minis
>>
>> UBSCC deals with it in a very simple manner at the Woodland Car
>> Show (which
>> I attend yearly)... if you think it's British they will go along
>> with it.
> At
>> their shows you will see German Cars (MINIs, Bentleys, Daimlers-
>> licensed
> by
>> German Daimler), Irish or American cars (DeLoreans), Italian,
>> Spanish, New
>> Zealand, Argentina Cars (Minis), American Cars (English Fords,
>> Jaguars,
> Nash
>> Healey's & Metro's, Aston Martins), etc. etc. etc....
>>
>> Btw, what is a Mazda? It's been partially owned by Ford for years
>> and Ford
>> has been doing the primary designing for years?
>> Looking at Wikipedia, Aston Martins are no longer predominantly
>> owned by
>> Ford but also by Kuwaiti Investors and the cars are manufactured in
> Austria.
>> What would James Bond say?
>>
>> Peter
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nobbc-bounces@autox.team.net [mailto:nobbc-bounces@autox.team.net
>> ] On
>> Behalf Of Clif & Deborah Williamson
>> Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 1:49 PM
>> To: North Bay British Car Club
>> Subject: Re: [Nobbc] More than you want to know about Minis
>>
>> Peter,
>> You couldn't have said it better.
>> Perhaps it would be best to say, that if a car has British roots,
>> it is
>> British. I have a bit of a problem with that, but I can't think of a
> better
>> way to deal with the issue.
>> Clif
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Peter Ziedrich
>> Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 12:43 PM
>> To: 'North Bay British Car Club'
>> Subject: Re: [Nobbc] More than you want to know about Minis
>>
>> Where this logic might be sound, then I guess new Jaguars and Land
>> Rovers
>> aren't British but Indian, and new Bentley Continentals are German
>> (owned
> by
>> BMW and looks like BMWs), and Aston Martins are American... hmmm...
>> Okay. Does that make recent Jeeps German and later ones Italian?
>>
>> I guess what I am saying is that no cars manufactured today have a
>> clean
>> pedigree. Almost all Japanese cars sold in the Western hemisphere are
>> manufactured in the US, and most American automobiles are
>> manufactured
>> and/or assembled in Mexico, Canada, or China. In fact one of the
>> newer
> Buick
>> models is manufactured in Germany. I guess most of us believe the
>> cars
>> pedigree should be assigned to the country where the profits end
>> up.... but
>> only sometimes.. only when it supports our personal biases.
>>
>> peter
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nobbc-bounces@autox.team.net [mailto:nobbc-bounces@autox.team.net
>> ] On
>> Behalf Of Clif & Deborah Williamson
>> Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 12:08 PM
>> To: North Bay British Car Club
>> Subject: Re: [Nobbc] More than you want to know about Minis
>>
>> Thanks Gerry.
>> But what I get from this is that the BMW Mini is not British at all.
> Except
>> for a few part here and there and a similar exterior design, it is
>> pretty
>> much "GERMAN". I think almost all manufacturers of cars buy parts
>> made in
>> other countries, but I don't think because a Toyota or any of it's
>> parts
> are
>> made in the USA, that it is an American car. Nor a VW made in
>> Mexico, is a
>> Mexican car. In fact it would seem that the only thing that truly
>> has
>> British heritage on the Mini is the name "Mini", as your
>> description below
>> would attest. I don't know if Cooper was the designer of the BMW
>> Mini, but
>> even that would not change if it was British or not, since
>> Pininfarina was
>> the designer of many non Italian cars that are not considered Italian
>> including the Jaguar, and Rolls-Royce.
>> Please, don't get me wrong. I love the Mini, British, or German.
>> I had an
>> occasion back in 1970 to be hitch hiking in Sweden and was picked
>> up by a
>> Swed driving a Dodge Charger. After a few miles of back country
>> roads a
>> Mini came up behind and past us. Well this Swed was not going to be
> outdone
>> by a little cracker box so off we went. And after about 5 miles of
> twisting
>> Swedish roads he gave up. I was so pumped up by the adrenaline
>> rush caused
>> by the chase I was shaking when he dropped my off in the middle of no
> where.
>>
>> At that point I realized, that "might does not make right" and fell
>> crazy
> in
>> love with the Mini.
>> Clif
>> 74 JH
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: G. Mugele
>> Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 11:03 AM
>> To: North Bay British Car Club
>> Subject: [Nobbc] More than you want to know about Minis
>>
>> Ahem... well Greg, you have the virtue of youth; you're not old
>> enough to really have this down. However, it was not as straight-
>> forward as all that.
>>
>> BMC built the Austin Seven and Morris Mini-Minor at a couple plants
>> in
>> England beginning in '59 or so. The Morris quickly acquired the
>> sobriquet
>> 'Mini" in popular UK vernacular. Very soon afterward the Austin also
> became
>> the 'Mini.' I can only guess that the appellation was the result
>> of how
>> people described them. Anyway... as the popularity grew BMC did
>> some badge
>> engineering and also marketed the Riley Elf and the Wolseley
>> Hornet, giving
>> them some hideous fins and other awkward cosmetics. Those poor
>> cousins
> were
>> also called Minis.
>> Not long after the initial introduction, BMC upped the displacement
>> to a
>> throbbing hunk of iron displacing 998cc and called it the Austin
>> Mini Cooper or the Morris Mini Cooper. Those soon became simply
>> "Mini Coopers." Time and popularity soon brought us many variants
>> as well
>> as more and more powerful versions. Those sporty ones were labeled
>> with
>> things like 'S' and '1275 S.'
>>
>> Around the time or shortly after BMC became British Leyland, the
>> company
>> formally adopted the Mini name and the cars were sold under the
>> 'Mini'
>> label. Of course by then there were variants all over the
>> world: Italy, Spain, Chile, New Zealand, Belgium and a number of
>> other
>> countries all had plants. Some were factory and some were built
>> under
>> license (Innocenti). I don't know who made the Mini Moke but I
>> suspect that
>> it was an official BMC product.
>>
>> In the 90s BMW became the parent company by buying Land Rover (Rover
>> Group) from British Aerospace. At that time Rover Group was owner
>> of what
>> was left of BMC. I suspect BMW bought Rover to cover for the lack
>> of an
> SUV
>> in the market. When BMW introduced the X5 they quickly dumped Land
>> Rover
> on
>> Ford and at the same time sold the rest of Rover Group (including
>> MG) to
>> some British consortium. But BMW decided to keep
>> the Mini name and opted to build a new model. The original Mini was
>> out of production by 2000 or so.
>>
>> The BMW Mini is related only in layout and appearance.
>>
>> BTW mine was a '61 Mini Cooper. It was grossly overpowered :) with
>> that 55
>> HP beast under the hood. I am amazed that I survived owning that
> incredibly
>> fun little car: it inspired spirited driving well
>> beyond my skills at the time. These days, with 400+ HP engines
>> relatively commonplace, it's hard to imagine that 50 years ago 100
>> horsepower was a real handful, especially in our LBCs.
>>
>> This concludes todays lecture.
>>
>> Gerry
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Jan 31, 2011, at 8:22 AM, Greg Tatarian wrote:
>>
>>> I'll let John answer to tell you what he wants to call his MINI, but
>>> here's the deal on these cars (I know as we have a 2011 Mini John
>>> Cooper Works (JCW) Hardtop;
>>>
>>> The car company is "MINI", which as owned by BMW differentiates its
>>> name from the original "Mini", which, short version here, was made
>>> both by Austin and Morris in the UK, and other companies overseas
>>> under license during the day.
>>
>> G. Mugele
>> mewgull@mugele.net
>>
>> *** "Life in Lubbock, Texas taught me two things. One is that God
>> loves you
>> and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most
>> awful,
>> dirty thing on the face of the earth and you should
>> save it for someone you love." -- Butch Hancock
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