Let me tell you my story 1st. I had been driving a Hyundai Tiburon GT for 4 years when I was involved in a hit and run on a Wednesday on my way to work. This idiot side swiped my car in front of all places a police station. My car was still driveable and I managed to chase the the idiots car long enough to get the plate number and provided it to the police. Then on Friday on my way to work again a deer decided to take the Tiburon out for good. It was also my final car payment!!

I always wanted a MINI, so off I go in a rental car looking for my new to me MINI. Three days and 2700 miles of looking at various ones thru-out NY,NJ,CT,PA, and MA, my son and I finally found her. Funny thing was that I live in Milford Pa and we found her in Milford Ct. b By time my son and I got home our mouths were hurting from smiling the whole ride home. bWe both still talk about that day whenever some asks about Christine.

I could of go on in more detail about this amazing time my son and I had, but I think you can tell by my excitement 2 years later my excitement has not died. These memories with my son will last a life time.

Now it is your turn.

 

Well I bought my MINI after test driving one about 1 month prior, in December 2011. I looked at several fuel efficient cars because the 24.5 MPG daily in my 128i wasn't cutting it anymore. I had my heart set on a Chili Red with white roof, then I saw it, Lightning Blue with Black roof, and that about did it. I opted for that one. However being mostly unfamiliar with MINIs I didn't know about all the cool options you could put in them. My car had Cold weather package, Bluetooth and iPod/USB and that was it. I named him Desmond. 2012 was a great year. We tooled around from the Dragon, and on several MINI related rallies and drives and countless commutes to and from work.
On a whim I built a MINI to my specs in Oct. 2012 and took the print out to my local dealer. Lo-And-Behold I find that I can get into that "specially tailored for me " MINI for less than the cost of my current monthly due to a better credit rating and a lower interest rate, JACKPOT!
November 2012 Desmond II was born. Delivery 5th December and still happily motoring!

 

I always liked the look of the MINI but...small... Went to the Seattle car show and sat in some. Loved them! Found that they were not so small from the inside and I loved the character. Lusted after one for about 3 years, reading the forums now and then and building my own on the website. Went to the Seattle car show last year and had a discussion with my hubby on the way up..."I'm gonna be wanting that MINI....what about the payment...Do it now or probably never will with retirement possible in 6 years..." Sat in the MINI's and really went over them this time. Begged for a stop at NW Mini for a test drive onto way home and promised not to pet the car and do "the eyes"....it will just be a test drive. Rocky pulled the test car around and it was almost exactly what I had been building all this time...with extras I thought I didn't need. Took it for a spin and that was the end. I did not pet and I did not do "the eyes" but I could not wipe the grin from my face! That was Saturday. Picked him up on Monday. Haven't regretted it for a minute and I'm still grinning when I drive him and still going out just to drive.

 

Your awsome stories are putting another big smile on my face. Lets keep it going.

 

I Was always on the look-out for a small car since I'm young with no missus or kids,and I like the appeal of a small car (& my budget ofcourse wouldn't allow me to get something like a BMW 1M or M3 ). I. Was deciding between a BMW 118i hatch(which was my most expensive option), a 2009 1.6 ford focus, or a golf four gti. I diddnt really know much about any of the cars mentioned above, I did take all for a test drive and was leaning more towords the GTi, but I couldn't find one in good condition, and the ones that were, were modified to my dislike. My dad suggested that I look into a MINI, I diddnt expect that one from him lol. But I did, and after I started googling and browsing NAM for about 2months, I fell in cyber love with them. I'd watch video's on Youtube for hours a day and took pics of any mini I saw on the roads. At this point I wanted one so bad I diddnt care if it were a Cooper, ONE or Cooper S. (Watching the italian job only intensified my lust ) then one day my dad's friend (who owned a rebuilt R53 a few years prior) called my dad and told him that there's a MINI on its way to our home, we should have a look at it. It was the most random thing, I rember the car hoot outside and I peered out the window, all I could see was a black side mirror :P , as the garage slowly opend I remember thinking "please let it have cooper S wheels" "please be a cooper S" , and sure enough it was a beautiful pepper white with black rally stripes/ we took it for a test drive, and the same day we arranged the sale . My dads friend who arranged all this, said that seeing and driving my MINI brought back so many memories of his old R53 and that he never since owned a car which was so much fun to drive, so a month after I got mine, he got a 2011 JCW :D !

 

Great story

 

I don't remember much about the day we picked up the first MINI, we were jetlagged. We'd just flown in from Britain after going to a friend's wedding and taking a vacation. It was Tuesday and the previous Friday we'd toured the MINI factory in Oxford.

We'd been waiting for the day for a long time, we test drove the car about a year earlier, and had ordered it sometime in April, there was about a 2 1/2 month wait for production in those days. My wife had been obsessing about this one, she'd been on the owner's lounge and doing all the tracking, and finding out about the cult of the MINI. As we toured England Ireland and Wales I started to take an interest in the tracking, and got more excited as the vacation progressed.

 

Ypur story is awesome. I would love to tour the plant one day.

 

I have always driven small econoboxes. I love reading about the history of the MINI and was so excited to see them come back to the U.S. When the first dealership opened in Scottsdale, I test drove one with the CVT and didn't like it. Then the convertibles came out. I was in love. Then in 2010 I test drove the newer convertible and was in love. Finally in 2011 my partner had enough of me wanting to go "look" and we purchased "Firefly", he was in the back and had everything's wanted. He is our traveling car and we go to CA a lot. I love the handling, open air feeling and fuel economy. It is so much fun to drive.

 

I know the feeling of wanting one of the originals. One day I will have one.

 

In October of 2011 I got myself a certified preowned Nissan Altima, shortly there after I started getting really sick and eventually we figured out all underneath the rug of the car was mold due to the AC compressor backing into the cabin. To keep a long story short I had to file suit vs Nissan to get rid of the damn car and when I got my settlement I was looking at cars and found Luigi. Test drove him and was instantly in love! I remember the ride home was so exciting and kind of nerve wrecking because I had never driven a car so small!

 

February 14, 2004 was the date we bought and picked up my wife's Justa. And it had to be Chilli Red, of course.

No good stories to tell about the day I picked up my 2003 Justa, this past summer...

 

I'll never forget the day I picked up my Chili red/white 06 Mini. I ordered it and it took 10 weeks to get here and it was the longest 10 weeks of my life! I took delivery of it on Nov. 10, 2005. This was the first car that was really for me after driving four kids around in minivans for so many years! What a thrill to get in my own little car. There were very few Minis around here in 2006 so it got lots of attention!

Two weeks ago today, I replaced my 06 MC with a 2013 MCS, spice orange/black with black sport stripes. I love my new car! I still have the 06 but will be selling it soon. I will hate to see it go!

 

I'd driven a Mazda3 for two years in high school that I worked and paid for a great deal of. It was far more than I needed in terms of niceties and space at the time. Around March of my senior year, it came time to choose which university I'd attend. Option A. a close university that offered a nice scholarship. Option B. was also close-ish, but was charging out of state tuition with no scholarship. I chose A. and put the Mazda up for sale after 25,000+ miles of trouble-free driving. The hunt began. I knew I wanted a MINI so I test drove the Justa first at the request of my parents. The power and delivery were fine for me. I only wanted a sunroof so options or lack thereof weren't really a big deal. However, when my father and I returned to the dealership a couple of times later he drove both the Justa and the S and promptly decided that the S was "the one". I agreed, and we returned home so I could for the 10,000th time, scour AutoTrader and eBay. Days later the new owner of the Mazda came to pick it up leaving me carless and sad, or so I thought. As I handed her the keys my dad turned the corner into our driveway in Baker, a red bow garnished CPO 2010 PW/B MCSa.

 

These stories are great please keep them coming.

 

The day I picked up my MINI was unforgettable. I had been searching for a 1st gen for a while and finally found a manual MCS with everything I wanted within my price range, but over 300 miles away in NJ. I called, made a deposit, traveled up to check it out, then signed the papers. Everything was cool except that the only other time I had ever driven stick was a week earlier. I stalled out many, many times on the way home, but I made it back in one piece and got a whole lot of practice in to boot. I don't think I would have gotten it so quickly if it wasn't for that trip, since I'd have been stuck in Delaware or something if I decided to give up. Nine months and over 20k miles later, I'm still happily motoring in my MINI.

 

Pure87 Another great story.

 

Fun thread!

When the new MINI's rolled out after BMW took over, i didn't pay too much attention. Then i saw the Italian Job (2003) and fell in love with the look, but didn't think i'd ever own one due to size.

Since then i got to drive a hardtop at a couple test drive events and was surprised at how well they handled. From that point on, i had wanted one, but it still wasn't the car for me.

Fast forward to August 2012 and i was getting tired of my 05 G35c and the mpg was killing me on my commute to work. One of my best friends had bought a 2010 PW MCS and had got me thinking since my wife convinced me it was time to get rid of the Infiniti. I knew i wanted a Clubman for the extra cargo space, so I started doing my research here on NAM and found a Black on Black 2010 Clubman S at a MINI dealership through Cars.com. While the color wasn't my first choice, it was the only used MCCS that was a manual and had the JCW kit with the driving lights. Those three options were my only requirements. Found it on a Monday and by Saturday i was signing paperwork.

Love my car

 

Beautiful Clubman. And another great story.

 

Love the green mirror caps!

 

I'm in. I live in Maine and found my 06 MCS JCW here on NAM in the marketplace.....in Miami, FL. After a couple months of arrangements on the day after my birthday I flew to Miami, the previous owner picked me up, and a couple hours and one credit union trip later I was enjoying my 1605 mile "get acquainted" drive back to Maine. Drove all night with a rest area nap in the driver's seat in North Carolina and Virginia and after about 30 hours ended up where I started out from.

 

Another great story. I don't know about anybody else reading these, but I get a smile on my face with every one of them. It is almost as I am there with you along for the ride. Please keep them coming.

 

Nice! Nothing better than a long trip to start a new relationship.

 

Almost exactly two years ago, a friend at work came back from the holidays with a new MINI. I had never even considered one before that. I rode in his a couple times going to lunch and decided I had to test drive one. I drove all the way across town to look at the MINIs on the lot at Flow Raleigh. I looked at all the cars on the lot, checking out the wheels and colors and differences between the S and Justa, trying to decide if I wanted to consider a Clubman or not. One of the stand out cars was a Eclipse Gray JCW hardtop with Chili Red roof and mirrors. Peeking into the window made me fall in love with the red piping on the leather seats and the black dials, and the black Challenge Spoke wheels looked great.

I test drove an S and was hooked.

I spent at least a couple months playing with the configurator trying to decide exactly which options I wanted to put on the MINI I was going to order. I was almost ready to pull the trigger on a Horizon Blue with black top, but I couldn't decide which wheels I wanted. My son and I drove back to Flow to check out the wheels on the cars in person again. When we pulled onto the lot, the first thing I noticed was that the gray/red JCW was still there. A light bulb went on. I thought that maybe since the car had been on the lot for so long that maybe they would cut me a deal on it.

I asked the MA I had been working with and he said, "Make me an offer." I did some research to determine the "fair market value" of the car, subtracted a few hundred dollars and made the offer. The MA came back and said we're just a couple hundred off. I said, "Sold!" I got an almost fully loaded JCW for not much more than the S I had put together in the configurator. At first I wasn't sure about the red roof, but now I can't picture my MINI being any other way.

Now, I've had the car for a bit more than 1.5 years and it continues to make me happy every time I drive it. I've done a few simple mods and when I got really tired of the OEM runflats, I replaced the Challenge Spoke wheels with OZ Alleggerita rims and Michelin Pilot Super Sports. I managed to find somebody who wanted to buy my Challenge Spoke wheels in the Tar Heel Mini Motoring Club (THMMC). Several members in the club joined forces to help deliver the wheels from NC to Ohio right before Thanksgiving. I never realized when I bought my MINI that there was also an amazing culture connected to these cars. I've done several driving events with my son as a passenger including driving the Dragon during two consecutive MSSDs. What a great time with a great group of people.

This MINI is my all time favorite car to own and drive.

 

Another great story please keep them coming. I don't know about you guys but each story puts a smile on my face.