[Nobbc] More than you want to know about Minis
Mark Darley
markdarley at mac.com
Mon Jan 31 18:25:30 MST 2011
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 at 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 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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