After my misfortunes at Markel (see "Unhappy Motorer" thread) my father in law thinks that it would be a great idea to open a "Mini Speed" shop in lincoln. my question to the locals is, how do you think it would do? would local mini owners do business with this kind of a shop? this right now is just an idea and we are looking for some input, so please post with some info, ideas, and input. anything would be much appreciated!!!

 

does anyone have any ideas?

 

I just do all my own stuff now that my MINI is out of warranty. But I get some parts from the dealer. Unless your set up thru MINI USA to do warranty work you might have a hard time. Thats a super specialized market. There is a guy in Austin TX that has a MINI shop.

 

I tell you what, I would come see you guys and you are another 50 miles farther from me than Markel.

I'd go to them for warranty work, and you for any speed shop items.

But you might want to see about making it a BMW speed shop, rather than just MINI. Even though Markel says they move about 30 MINIs a month, I don't know how many of those people are enthusiasts for the motoring/performance of the MINI, or just those looking to be unique.

Regards.....

 

we would not perform any warranty work, just routine maint. and performance mods. lincoln really doesnt have anything like that and i do know that there are a few mini owners in the area that may or may not be interested in something like this. i do appreciate the input though

 

i would love to have a place to get my mini worked on in lincoln! i am in desperate need to get my oil changed but i don't wanna drive to markel to pay $100 to get it done. i'm a poor college kid with nowhere to do my own work so a place in lincoln would be awesome for me.

 

I grew up in Auburn, NE and when I come home to Nebraska I see very few Mini's. Is there enough business to keep the doors open?

btw.... BO Big Red

 

That is a good question. I also see very few minis in Lincoln and surrounding areas. I dont think that there would be enough mini business to keep the doors open, but if you have a tech that can work on anything, then I would have to say "The doors are always open." The tech that I speak of is my father in law. He has worked on farm and military equipment (<-USMC), american and foreign vehicles, and airplanes. He has worked on Peugots, Porsches, Ferraris, Maseratis, '36 Buicks, Chevys, Fords, Dodges, my Mini, and anything else with wheels. He is a very smart and intelligent man and he has customers that follow him wherever he goes. So that would be a plus.

Nothing like 80k+ screaming fans to watch the "BO SHOW"!!!

 

there is a need for a speed shop catering to folks not on the high end, but also not ricer-fanboy-tastic. there are a couple of locations I know of that would be ideal if you could get a large enough operation up and running, but it would take a pretty impressive investment to get it moving.

The BMW crowd in general doesn't have a real "speed-shop" either... and there are a LOT of cross-polinated MINI/BMW households... pretty decent chance I will be one of them soon...

 

We are still putting some ideas together. The main thing that it comes down to is the "investment" part. We both relize that it is going to cost a pretty penny to get a shop up and running. Another thing that was brought up was the liability issues. I think that both of us are still pretty committed, but right now we are just trying to work out some details.

Any other additional input is welcomed.

 

those are the right conversations to have, but the MOST IMPORTANT piece is how you will drive people to the door.

 

Advertise, advertise, advertise!!! Radio, tv, newspaper, here on NAM, word of mouth. Introduce specials on maint. items.

Its still in the works though. Hopefully one day we can finally open the
doors.

 

you can spend a lot of money on ads and get nowhere... focused advertising is the key... and spend some time defining "who will our customers be, where can we find them, and how do we motivate them to give us their money."