Just wanted to say hello and introduce myself. I am Woody and am currently stationed in Stuttgart Germany. I just went and put a deposit down for my first Mini Cooper. I have an order in for a 2009 Mini Cooper S. I have added the following options on it.

1. Pepper White. But i am debating on changing that to Red though.

2. I opted for Black Cloth seats as I will be going back home to Fayetteville NC after a year and a half. And leather or pleather is not so good in the southeast.

3. Navigation. As much as I would like to play the Alpha male who merely has to see the position of the sun or stars to navigate that just isn't the case with me. Plus the roads here in Germany are super confusing.

4. Mini HIFI. I figured it would be a nice way to spend 13 hours of driving to go chill on the beach in Italy.

5. Comfort Access, yeah I am that lazy!

6. Comfort blue tooth/Ipod/Phone hook up. Again yeah I am that lazy, plus with all the laws about hands free talking on the phone I thought it was a nice opition.

7. Xenon Headlights, well to me they speak for themselves.

8. Center Arm rest, I hate not having one in my BMW here so yeah it's going in the MINI.

9. I opted for the 16" 5 star wheels with all season tires. I did this because it is the law in Germany that you must have all season or better tires during the winter. I will find a nice set of wheels aftermarket wise for the summer. (I would like a deep dish set in the rear so please do make suggestions if you know of any.)

10. Automatic Climate control. Again I am that lazy that I refuse to reach over and turn it down/up when I am cold/hot.

11. Auto Tranny. I opted for this as Stuttgart traffic sucks and I am tired of driving a manual here. Mercedes and Porsche are HQ'ed here plus all thier sub companies who support their plants, so imagine DC X2. I know your thinking but you have the autoban, well it takes me an hour and 10 minutes usually to go 20 miles down it in the mornings and afternoons.


Things I have not finished thinking about it changing the color to Red so that the British/Jack Flag in the roof will look better. The Pepper white looks good in the show room but outside I think it is just not white enough.

I am also debating the racing stripes straight down the center of the hood, though it isn't that big of a hood I think it looks good on MINIUSA.COM.

I go back tomorrow (the 2nd of Jan) and finalize the order so that my order can be sent to Oxford and get a build date. I have been told that it should be about a week after the e-mail is sent to Oxford to get a build date then two weeks before they begin building the car. After that is it about 4 days of transport from Oxford to Stuttgart.

 

Almost Welcome
Do you know if they have the "factory dlivery" where you can pick it up at the plant?

 

I'm not sure about that. However I will be in the US visiting friends when it is delivered to the dealer here in Stuttgart so I wouldn't be able to take advantage of that either way.

I made some changes to the order today. I added the Premium package and the Convenience package as well as changed the color to Chili Red. The car has been booked for a next week build date. I am pretty stoked about it and hope to be in it by the beginning of next month.

 

Sounds like a pretty nice build and driving a MINI in Germany, on the autobahn or on a nice smooth B-road is really awesome, my experience with them there convinced me to get one when I returned to the states. For things like Bonnet stripes and roof graphics, don't worry if you didn't order them from the dealer, there's plenty of vendors on here who can make all the graphics and stripes you could want.
For good deep dish wheels I'd grab something cool and rare you like in Germany and ship them stateside with your household goods, the European wheel designs are second to none.

 

I am going with the Jack Flag on the roof, but have yet to order it as I have to wait for the car to come in. I am looking at doing racing stripes in white as well. But as far as wheels I am still not sure what I would like to go with. I have always been a 5 star fan and a staggered setup fan. For example here is a couple pics of my 03 Cobra with my HRE 845R's on it. They are 19X11 in the rear and 19X9 upfront. I really love this look but I just can't see spending that kind of money on my Daily Driver for wheels.

 

Very nice, I'm a fan of the Terminator 'Stangs.
There's some here who have HREs on their MINIs, I have a set of BBS LMs I use during the warmer months and am a big fan of the BBS wheels overall. It's hard to say what will work for you, given the offsets the MINI has to work with wheels with decent lip aren't as common on our cars but some have made them work.
You can check out the "Show me your wheels thread" on here or check the garages/galleries of some of the people who frequently swap wheels on here for ideas.

 

Thanks man, I like BBS wheels too. They are a really nice wheel. Great choice man.