Just stumbled across the blogs of two people who are sharing their experience with the new MINI E one year lease trial. Should be some interesting reading.
My Year with an All-Electric MINI
Edit: Okay, I didn’t look hard enough, here’s several more:
http://electricride.wordpress.com/
http://electricmini.blogspot.com/
http://www.stuartistry.com/my-mini-e/
This is just a quick post to show off my new grille badge (and my first!). Paul from the club worked with Arnie Brown’s Automobilia to create these works of art. It’s the one part of my car that I keep clean.
Warm weather means more blog updates, and this year I’m going to attempt have a new post every one or two weeks. I’m already stacking posts up to make this happen, wish me luck!
I’d have to say this new event was a big success! We had a great turnout of about 20 or so MINIs and perfect weather. Big thanks to Jeff for the thorough planning for this event. I apparently stuck the wrong (dead) batteries in my 2-way radio, so I missed hearing the banter that I’m sure was going on on channel 20-20. If you want to get the full story, including accounts of sideways MINIs and carsick passengers, you’ll want to check out the last couple pages of the event’s forum thread.
See more in my photo gallery
The title really says it all, just watch and be amazed!
I’ve had this CravenSpeed supercharger pulley on the car for a couple months, and now I’m finally making a post about it! Kellen let me send him whatever design I wanted on the pulley, so I decided to go with a Tony Stewart “Smoke” logo. I think it looks great, and the extra power is pretty nice as well.
Here’s a video I threw together (and Courtney filmed) of the Blue Ridge Parkway Tour. It was such a blast that plans are already in the works for the next cruise up the Parkway
Last week my dad and I got to work on installing an 19mm Eibach rear sway bar on the MINI. I would encourage anyone who is planning on getting an R.S.B for their MINI(and has a decent set of metric tools) to save a little dough and install it themselves. Just allow yourself plenty of time and you’ll really learn a lot about your MINI. As for how the Eibach performs? I would say when set on the stiffer of the two settings, it’s really an ideal setup! When I first installed it, I had it set on the more conservative setting, which did make it a bit more surefooted in the turns compared to stock, but there was still plenty of under-steer present. Once set on the stiffer setting, it really had me grinning. In most cases it’s now very close to a neutral handling car. On the track I’ll probably be able to apply a little trail braking without experiencing excessive snap over-steer. I imagine trail braking could get pretty scary with a 22mm or higher rear sway.
On Tuesday I went with few guys from the Tar Heel MINI Club to the Hybrid Technologies open house in Mooresville, NC. It was great to see all the technologies involved to convert vehicles to electric only (didn’t I mention that’s what they do?) Check out the pictures in my photo gallery and the short video below.
And thanks to Bill who also showed us around the Roush-Fenway garages as well!
On the morning of April 12th, Courtney and I joined over 20 other MINIs for a great adventure to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The Swan Quarter Ferry brought us to Ocracoke after a two and a half hour ride. After a quick lighthouse photo-op, and hotel check in, we had dinner at Howard’s Pub.
Tearing through the rough waters of the Pamlico Sound.
Sunday morning we all took off to the northern tip of Ocracoke to catch the ferry to Hatteras.
The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was our next stop.
..and then the Bodie Island Lighthouse.
We then went to Big Al’s Soda Shop for some tasty treats (mmm chocolate cola.) From here we all said our goodbyes and made our way home at our own pace. Big thanks to Paul (BlimeyCabrio)for his precision planning of this event!
