After an all too long but fruitful search, I found the Cooper S Hardtop 4 door. I found it to be the most fun car you can buy with four seats for under $55,000. And the most fun with five doors you can buy for any price.

And so a few days ago my new MINI went into production. The exterior will be Electric Blue with Silver Victory Spoke wheels and white roof, mirror caps, and stripes. The interior has Satellite Grey seats and doors with a grey headliner and grey accents on the MINI Yours steering wheel. Much to my surprise (and contrary to my initial miniusa spec'ing and kbb pricing) it will be a paddle shifting steering wheel as I found the automatic Cooper S performed better than the manual. Inconceivable.

The miniusa interior picture is a bit misleading - the door frame will actually be grey as (theoretically) will be the headliner. The interior is perhaps better shown in the photo from an actual car (though mine will not have a sunroof).

In a way my new MINI is a nod to the favorite car I've owned (thus far!) a 1997 Porsche Boxster.

I waited for a little more than a year between order and delivery for that Boxster. It was truly unique - built in Germany with a complete grey leather interior that they only offered that first year, covered with the short lived graphite grey convertible top, and painted in a Blue Turquoise that was only offered for two years (a French Racing Blue comparable to Laguna Seca Blue for you BMW-philes out there). Irreplaceable...or IS IT?

In a pleasant piece of serendipity both my old Boxster and my new MINI offer 0-60 in 6.5 seconds. And I'm really, really looking forward to many years of driving fun - albeit this time with a pair of kids in the back seats.

 

Congrats on your impending arrival! We are awaiting a similar build, EB with black. We have been through the order and wait process 3 times already so this time my husband had the dealer do a search and found one already in production. We will still have to wait a bit but not quite as tortuous as the others.

 

Congrats and enjoy!

 

Brilliant! I wish I had thought of that. I looked on autotrader to see dealer stock anywhere within 300 miles and came up empty...but looking into the pipeline gives you a glimpse of 'nicer' cars that haven't been snapped up. Very nice!

 

Congrats. EB with the sate. gray ( close to white ) interior , great combo.

 

welcome and join the club of people waiting for their F55 ...

 

Great choice! Enjoy.

-Luccia

 

Congrats and enjoy!

 

It's built! (...and it's going to be a LONG 5-ish weeks)

 

It's gonna swim soon! (...and it's gonna be a LONG 4-ish weeks)

 

Congrats on your purchase, lmmiii. Let your wait be short. Don't forget the pics when it arrives.

 

I looked at the WW website today...
https://www.2wglobal.com/
...and interestingly/oddly enough my MINI was originally booked for the ELEKTRA which sailed out of Southampton on the 7th. I'm hoping the reason it was 'returned to shipper' was the 'wrong sticker' problem.

But my MINI shows as 'loaded on vessel' on the DON JUAN as of this morning and into NYC on the 21st. Woohoo!

 

Title says it all...1st pics in my garage. More detailed analysis of packages/options to follow.