That grille is a great addition!

 

Finally finished my stripe down the boot - and completely de-badged and de-stickered him. 25 hp gain, at least.

 

Two stripes a 50hp increase?

 

Yeah, I'll go with that!

 

Here my 2008 from the other day.

 

I like it. It has the right amount of chrome mixed with black. All black out on blue is questionable in my book. I like the red calipers and driving light also. You have all the options that I like.

 

I agree, that's one great looking MINI!

 

Thank you guys! I have fallen in love with this car. I have never enjoyed a car like I do this one and will keep it for the long haul!

 

My GFs new ride - 2008 Cooper..

http://s1194.photobucket.com/user/percymon/media/mini%20adventure/BA3FA0D2-BBFE-457F-A2E8-8999F2428F3A_zpsscg9m4ob.jpg.html][/URL]

 

That is what my car looked like when I bought it. Black stripes and blue roof, but other than that, it looked just like that.

 

A before and after thread would be kinda cool...

 

I put a JCW grill on my 2011 chili red

 

 

 

mini cooper astro black 2008 34400 km

 

Albiecrazy did you paint or use a decal? Looks good!

 

Painted bonnet to boot. And thank you - hit 90K about 2 weeks ago and happy as hell!

 

Congrats on the 90k. My 2008 now has 92k. Like you runs great and happy I have it.

 

Is this the original side skirt? If so do you have a close up of the paint line separating the black and white

 

In the first photo, is this the original side skirt?

 

No, that's not the original side skirt. It's the factory aero side skirt (not the JCW version).

I think that answers your first question, too? The photo didn't post.

 

Oh I didn't know there was another option. What model does that one come on? I really like it being body color. Makes the car look lower.

 

Yes - there are basically three options from MINI when it comes to side skirts and the front and rear bumper:

Stock - black side skirt - stock front and rear bumper

Factory Aero - this kit was meant to be painted the same color as the car, but also meant painting (or replacing, not quite sure) the wheel arches to match the car too. The front and rear bumper is also different from stock.

JCW Aero-kit - the side skirts for this kit are also painted, but just ahead of the rear wheel they put some pretty slick vents. They also continued the black from the rear wheel arch down to nearly the bottom and then about a 1/2 strip of black along the bottom edge to meet up with the wheel arch in the front. This is the side skirt that I originally wanted since I have the JCW front and rear bumper. Body shop mis-ordered it so I ended up with the factory aero-side skirt. I had them custom paint the ends to continue the wheel arches and I actually like it just fine. And for the money, I'm happy - the JCW skirts were nearly 3X the cost, if I recall.

This is the Kid with everything stock:



Here he is with factory aero side skirts before the wheel arches were blended into them:



Not the best picture, but if you look at the rear wheel, you can see where the wheel arch just stops at the side skirt. Major fail.

Any R56 can have these kits installed so there was no particular "model" that got the factory aero-kit. Most consider this kit a failure, really but I do see them around occasionally. Hope that clears thing up!

 

Yes it does, thanks. The shape of the aero one looks the same as the base just painted. I was going to paint mine but I didn't think it would look good not having the black continuing from the arches. I like your idea of painting the black area also.

 

Sorry about bad quality.. ill try to get better pictures with a better of my girl another time this pic is a few weeks old