i have known about the mini cooper for about 40 years, the first car my father had after i was born was a 1960 VW beetle (new). my father started buying a string of MG midgets in the mid '70's. seeing the mini in photos and on TV, it intrigued me. i've gravitated towards smaller cars all my life. my first car was a '65 beetle, then a '71 corolla, a series of ford escorts, a first generation subaru justy, a couple of geo metros, and now, my little smart.
i've looked at other small cars over the years, when i felt like buying a new car, the renault 5 (le car), the yugo (bought the suby instead). then in the last few years i've looked on ebay for little minis. i've bid on a few, knowing their innards from my father's midgets, not complex, but not that reliable. my brother picked up a subaru 360 in 1980, that was a piece of work (quite close to a smart, rear engine, rear wheel drive).
i've always enjoyed my smaller cars, i'm a slight person, 5'8" and 115 pounds, i prefer to "wear" my car than "swim" in it... i've had a few biggies, a '68 polara, a '68 catalina, a ''71 LTD, i always was clinging to the steering wheel to stay in place while driving.
today, i finally met up with an original mini, over the years, i've seen a couple, quite aways away, never close enough to walk up to one, get the actual scale/size of it. i was shocked and awed at the same time. it was so tiny! i parked my smart next to it, and it towered over the little car. the mini had seats behind the fronts, i have no idea what could inhabit them, the front seats were at "gocart" level, which is sure to induce a degree of paranoia in most ( i rode in my aunt's toyota camry a few weeks ago, it rode so much lower than my smart!)
i went home, picked up my camera, then drove back to take pics and a movie. the owner, i think was the manager of a local store "tuesday morning", as i drove past the store i saw 2 people in the window watching me, who were probably watching me take pics of the mini and smart. it was so cool! i'm tempted to go back and ask to "trade rides" for a bit, to get the feel of a real mini.
i've looked at other small cars over the years, when i felt like buying a new car, the renault 5 (le car), the yugo (bought the suby instead). then in the last few years i've looked on ebay for little minis. i've bid on a few, knowing their innards from my father's midgets, not complex, but not that reliable. my brother picked up a subaru 360 in 1980, that was a piece of work (quite close to a smart, rear engine, rear wheel drive).
i've always enjoyed my smaller cars, i'm a slight person, 5'8" and 115 pounds, i prefer to "wear" my car than "swim" in it... i've had a few biggies, a '68 polara, a '68 catalina, a ''71 LTD, i always was clinging to the steering wheel to stay in place while driving.
today, i finally met up with an original mini, over the years, i've seen a couple, quite aways away, never close enough to walk up to one, get the actual scale/size of it. i was shocked and awed at the same time. it was so tiny! i parked my smart next to it, and it towered over the little car. the mini had seats behind the fronts, i have no idea what could inhabit them, the front seats were at "gocart" level, which is sure to induce a degree of paranoia in most ( i rode in my aunt's toyota camry a few weeks ago, it rode so much lower than my smart!)
i went home, picked up my camera, then drove back to take pics and a movie. the owner, i think was the manager of a local store "tuesday morning", as i drove past the store i saw 2 people in the window watching me, who were probably watching me take pics of the mini and smart. it was so cool! i'm tempted to go back and ask to "trade rides" for a bit, to get the feel of a real mini.
Replies to This Discussion
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Don't do it. You'll want one. In my younger days a friend owned and raced them in SCCA. A 1275 cooper S. The most fun I ever had short of my 70's Fiat 128. Ah, those were the days. Check out this 128 I found on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUjrZmVFxdA Mine was just as loud with a modified exhaust. BTW the old mini has sliding windows and 10 inch wheels. Drive it, love it, enjoy. Check youtube for Mini videos too. here's one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFt_hNwx2gU&feature=related
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this mini was not with the sliding front windows, but did have the 10"wheels, and had a large exhaust. i assume the car is owned by someone that works in the store, i'll talk to this person about the car and what's inside of it.
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i read popular mechanics in the '70's and followed the fiat 128. at that time, seemed like a nice car. now that fiat has acquired chrysler, we may see some new fiats, like the new 500 in america.
personally, i think a 2 cylinder car is acceptable, i've even looked at BMW isetta's with one cylinder engines, but parts and service are few and far between. i've been driving 3 cylinder cars for over 20 years, with smart engineering i would be happy with a 2 cylinder 500cc engine.
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Permalink Reply by George on -
I had a 1966 Cooper S that I drove on the streets and autocrossed in the late '70's and early '80's. It was a great little car. Had the sliding windows, etc. Your Smart looks bigger, but actually, the Mini is 10 feet long bumper to bumper. The Smart is lots taller, though. There is more room in the rear seat than it looks like. My Mini had stock seats with no roll bar and I fit pretty well back there and I am 6 feet 3 inches tall. If at all possible, own one before you die. Every true car enthusiast owes it to themselves to own at least one Mini (the original Mini, not the new one). George.
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i still look for the minis on ebay, due to where i currently live, i am limited to one vehicle, unless i can convince them that both vehicles could occupy one space (quite possible, smart/smart or smart/mini) they let people have motorcycles and cars in on space, why not 2 microcars? (i may bring this up with management, when my income can support 2 vehicles)
yes, the mini is actually 14 inches longer than the smart, but when you get out of a roomy smart and look down at a mini... hell, it's short... and a bit more narrow, i love the car! even when considering the car has a farm tractor engine, inferior electrical system and turns into a rolling rust bucket due to lack of rust-proofing.
my father totalled one of his MG midgets, had it towed home, stripped out the engine, tranny and wire wheels, then chopped the body to bits with a wood axe and tossed it out in the weekly trash!
if the mini had smart engineering and construction, i'd buy one in a hot second. size never bothered me in cars. it would be interesting if smart tried to get smaller than a mini. BMW did a good job blowing one up. if mercedes would try to make a 2 passenger "mini", i'd go for it.
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Permalink Reply by jackb on -
I don't know why we develop the taste we have in particular cars (or anything else), but I have also always been hooked on small cars. I still have a 1957 picture of me with my dad standing next to his German Ford Taunus. Some previous owner had mounted a translucent pink plastic swan on the nose which lit up at night (couldn't imagine why my dad insisted on calling the car Rudolph). It looked like something out of a Jean Shepherd story. And when I was 13 or 14, I remember riding around (cramped) with my friend and his dad in their Isetta (maybe the BMW version...not sure).
A guy I worked with had an original 60's era Fiat Cinquecento that rekindled my interest in micro machines. I almost bought a Fiat 128 back in the 70's, but the obvious rust on the new, indoor showroom car suggested that that vehicle might not turn out to be a keeper. I owned a Renault R5 (LeCar) in the 80's. Interesting experience. Fun to drive, but I never had a car's windows actually fall off onto the ground before. And after it literally blew a sparkplug out of the engine block, the dealer yawned and said they had a kit to fix that.
I'd still love to get my hands on a clasic Citroën 2CV (I see that, like Mini, VW Beetle and Fiat 500, they're going back to the future with a new version of the tin snail...maybe).
And now I'm driving my smart.
If these kinds of cars interest you generally, check out http://microcarmuseum.com
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Permalink Reply by jackb on
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As a "PS" bit of full disclosure to my previous note, I also had a Suzuki Samurai for ten years. Not technically a car, but a great little machine...
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i test drove a R5 in the 80's and settled on a subaru justy. my brother had a subaru 360, a 950 pound, 2 cylinder car, we had 4 in that a few times. i look at the 2CV and fiat 500 now and then, fortunately, i live in a plave where i can only keep one vehicle. when i have an "overflow", i keep the extra at my dad's house, like the smart was an "overflow" until i sold my mercedes, and the mercedes until i sold my metro.
i love the movie "Brazil", the main character drives a messerschmitt, which ends up getting torched on a business call. watching katherine helmond pull a billy button is a bonus.
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Nice pic.
I've seen a couple of the old minis around here; but they have all been moving; so no photo opp.
Out of curiosity....
Whatever happened to Renault, Peugeot and Citroen in the USA? I never saw any in the 90s... yet the 88 Jeep Wrangler I bought had a Pug gearbox, assembled in Canada.
I had Renaults back in the 60s and 70s. Now back in Oz, the French cars are still popular here. I was tossing between a Citroen or the smart... smart won out... it reminds of those rear engined Renaults (Dauphine, R8 and R10) of the past. In those days, motoring critics did not like the rear engined Renaults - they complained of lightweight and touchy handling. Never bothered me... then the front wheel drive cars came out (R12, R16, etc) and I found them heavy and unresponsive. Maybe that's one reason I love the smart. There's a lot of French in the smart.
VW Beetles were so numerous, the national road sport seemed to be buying a small car that was faster. Honda finally had the answer in the Civic.
The old minis had an emormous steering wheel, mounted flat like a bus. Mono bloc rubber suspension; the CV joints were notorious for wearing out. I never cottoned on to them after driving one. Cooper S was a different story - the speedster of its' day. Smith electrics were not reliable at best in any British car.
The new mini... very overpriced here. Long and low compared to the fortwo.
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peugeots can be had in the US, as bicycles, today. around '80, a friend had a renault 11, i think, the 4 door hatch with FWD, i taught him how to use the parking brake and flooring it on a turn (my brother tried that on my mom's chevette with less than successful results LOL) citroens never got a foothold here, the occasional 2 or a DS21 made it over in the 70's.
it's funny, fiat died here in the late 70's with the 128 and x1/9 and renault with the R5 in the 80's. i think peugeots made it here for the few really masochistic sadists, goofball cars with nearly zero parts availability.
now we'll be getting back fiats with a vengience, seeing that obama gave them chrysler for FREE! we might be seeing the new 500's, which are about the same as BMW's bloated version of the mini. that's obama's dream, americans in micro cars.
the big conservative talk radio personalities have been bashing the smart for the last year, i'm a conservative and love the smart, every time they open their mouth against the smart i want to club them with a wrench! one, a lawyer, calls the smart a "4 cylinder golf cart", i may publish his e-mail addy so smarties can pummel him!
look at my page, i have a pic of the top talker, rush limbaugh, in a smart!
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Permalink Reply by jackb
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Fiat has announced that its 500 is coming to the US in 2011. The whole range, including a hatchback, a wagon, a cabriolet...and the ice cream sundae of the bunch...the Fiat 500 Abarth. Now...can your neighborhood Chrysler store stay in business long enough selling Sebrings to make it to the promised land? The Dodge dealer closest to me (one of the lucky bunch axed by Chrysler) has at least gotten into the Italian spirit of things. No more cars for them. They sell Vespas now...
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