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The MINI range - The Times
12.07.2001 |
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OUR BABY HAS GROWN UP....AND GONE ALL SOPHISTICATED
Forget the Manolos, the Matthew Williamson dress, the Rolex Daytona, there is only one accessory to be seen with this summer -the Mini. Or MINI, as BMW's marketing department would have us write.
It's not a car for the shy and retiring, however. Take this car anywhere and people want to look at it, to touch it, to see inside it. Tell someone you're a motoring journalist and their first question is: "Have you driven the new Mini? What's it like?"
The car turns heads wherever you take it. In Kings Road, Chelsea, yesterday the photographer and I caused a real stir with the car. People were shouting -"It's the new Mini". Children were tugging their parents' hands and pointing; bus and taxi drivers all smiled and gave us the thumbs-up and even drivers of original Minis were enthusiastic. There wasn't a single negative reaction.
Rarely has a new car generated the mass publicity that greeted the Mini's arrival on BMW dealers' forecourts this weekend -and not one authorised dealer turned down the offer of a Mini franchise -but this is no ordinary car. It is a British icon.
When BMW acquired the rights to the Mini name, there was predictable outrage. A German company to reinvent the Mini? How dare they, Sir. But, truth be told, they've made a jolly splendid job of it: our baby has grown up, gone to Europe and gone all sophisticated.
It's much bigger now, the size of a small hatchback, with a wheel almost at each corner. But it turns heads like nothing else. Earlier this week, in Germany, we were testing the new Porsche 911, which doesn't go on sale until September, and were travelling behind a car transporter with just one Mini on board.
People were pointing and heads were snapping around, but not one of them was looking in the direction of our Pounds 62,000 cabriolet.
It was the same story in Italy at the official press launch of the Mini. Even when we drove around small villages in Umbria, people were waving and smiling. Oncoming drivers flashed their lights and hooted their horns.
On seeing the car in Chelsea, one afternoon shopper crossed the road and made a beeline for it. "Is that the new Mini?" she asked. "I love it. It's so wonderful -you're very lucky." I was going to tell her it wasn't mine, honestly, but instead I found myself proprietorially stroking its chubby little wing. "Lovely, isn't it," I said.
Pull up at the side of the road (and only the Mini can get away with stopping on double yellow lines without complaint from two beaming policemen) and assistants come happily to the door to stare, customers forgotten, as if the car's presence outside their shop bestows a certain cachet.
Two teenagers are crestfallen when they are told they can't be in the picture, but still, unbidden, pick up a couple of pieces of billowing litter "so it looks nice in the photograph".
Even White Van Man, it seems, is not immune to the Mini's charms. The moment we snapped the indicator on to pull out, he slammed on his brakes and waved us into the traffic, grinning all the while. Another marvellous Mini moment.
Be prepared to want one. Badly.
By Catherline Riley, Motoring Editor