The Mini

Ladies and Gentlemen I give you a true wonder of British invovation and engineering - the 'Mini'. This little offshoot of the 1960s truly is a wonderous vehicle. It is almost too small to be in-any-way practical and has a non-existent engine (forget V6s and V8s - the basic model had 899cc. Awesome.). And yet... It is SO MUCH FUN. As in, ridiculously good fun.

I myself was fortunate to own a Mini much like the one in the pic when I first passed my driving test and it was QUALITY. For one it went round corners like it was on rails, which first of all put a great big grin on my face, and also meant that the executive in a BMW that had been tailgating me on that long strech of straight road all of a sudden had to watch me disappear into the distance as I cornered at ridiculously high speeds.

And then it is just plain quirky. The steering wheel looked like it belonged in a bus (remember that this car was designed in the 1960s) and there wasn't enough room to sit with your legs straight, plus my head was always in contact with the roof. This meant that you had to adopt this kind of crouch like driving position, but again it just added to the novelty of it all.

Every part of the engineering was old and simple and therefore every gear change was accompanied with a substantial application of force and an odd grinding sound. Still, this also meant that nothing would go wrong.

The boot (trunk) opened by folding downwards (like a 1930s sedan) and was large enough for one small bag, as it also housed the spare wheel and some other bits of archaeic technology, which always made extended trips interesting.

That is of course if you were brave enough to make an extended trip. The few times I drove my mini into Liverpool down fast roads, once the car reached speeds in excess of 66 mph it started to develop a distinct 'shudder' and made lots and lots of noise as it only had four gears.

And then there was always the issue of space. Though it was large enough for four adults in theory, in reality the word 'cramped' still doesen't do it justice. But again as with all things British it was 'character building'. Ha!

I really loved my mini. I had a Jet Black version (this meant that it had some exciting red piping along the side of the seats and jet black written in red in lots of different places) which again, like all mini's, had its own unique brand of quirkiness. For example, when I started the car I had to open the 'choke' to allow more petrol into the engine (most cars do this automatically these days) but the lever that was supposed to allow you to carfully adjust the 'choke' level never worked properly and therefore I had to regulate it with different size coins - 50p to start, 10p for a few mins, 20p to finish.

The aerial for the radio was an old coathanger (some scallies snapped the other one off), the heater didn't work (it just blew hot dust from the engine into the cabin), and best of all there was a fist sized hole in the door that was plugged with blu-tac and stickey tape. All incredibly inpractical but SO MUCH FUN. Man that car really did have character.

Of course on a day to day basis I love my punto all the more, as it just does what it is supposed to do which is much easier to live with, but I miss my mini.

And to finish, the reason I am talking at end about mini's is this. Me, Andy and Ryan just watched an amazingly, wonderful thing. That of a mini, equipped with rocket boosters and skis, being launched at speed off a ski-jump in Norway by the wonderful people at Top Gear (British tv programme). Awesome! So, so good.