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Welcome Red MINI

Some changes come to you when you aren’t expecting them, like this car. You may recall from the last post that the GeorgeCo E30 currently has a broken intake rocker. The repair isn’t huge, just time consuming.

For those of you who have been reading this blog for a long while know that we’ve walked a thin line with the GeorgeCo Blue MINI, trying for maximum track performance, but still being used it as a daily driver. With the addition of the noisy light-weight flywheel, and super sensitive SPEC clutch, it hasn’t been the best commuter car. That, and with the current springs and struts that will knock out a filling on a good sized pothole, nobody but GeorgeCo would ride in it. For the last couple of months GeorgeCo has been thinking about getting a new street car, always comparing potential replacements to the MINI. Finally, it dawned on us, why not another MINI?

Take all of the things we love about the MINI, and leave out the things that make the Blue MINI such challenging ride on the street. The mantra for this car is fast, quiet, and comfortable. That means yes to CAI, pulley, and tune, but no to stiffer springs and struts. Yes to thicker sway bars, but no to camber plates. Yes to comfort items (leather, armrest, parcel shelf, XM-radio, iPod) but no to cat-back exhaust. The feature set of the desired car was pretty limited and surprisingly difficult to find: 2006 MINI Cooper S; less than 50K miles, non-smoker, leather, cold-weather package, and limited slip and that’s it. The hardest part was finding a car without a sunroof, but eventually we found it. Meet the Red MINI.

Red MINI
[Click the photo to launch the slideshow]

This weekend was all about moving comfort items from the Blue MINI to the Red MINI: armrest, cubby organizer, parcel shelf, window auto-up circuit, AUX audio cable, leather shift and ebrake boots, XMDirect, and the R90 wheels with non-runflats to replace the R84s with runflats. Now we can leave the Blue MINI without rear seats and start to pull interior trim items so we can install a roll-hoop. After a quick 90 mile trip to GeorgeCo’s current undisclosed work location today, the biggest thing GeorgeCo noticed was the drop in noise. The Blue MINI is well over 100db at highway speed. This leads to ringing in the ears after a long drive. (GeorgeCo hasn’t minded in the past as the ringing drowns out the voices in his head.) The Red MINI is less noisy and thus less stressful to drive, though it is important to look at the speedo now to tell how fast you’re going as noise is no longer a solid indicator of speed….