[Nobbc] More than you want to know about Minis

Mon Jan 31 17:27:54 MST 2011

Then my VW would be in!
Clif

-----Original Message----- 
From: Liam O'Flaherty
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 4:00 PM
To: North Bay British Car Club
Subject: Re: [Nobbc] More than you want to know about Minis

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 at autox.team.net [mailto:nobbc-bounces at 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 at autox.team.net [mailto:nobbc-bounces at 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 at 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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