OK, I have been driving my MINI around Orange County for over a month now and have never had even one person compliment me, and most other MINI owners don’t even acknowledge me.

I went to Santa Monica early this morning for a work related project and couldn’t believe all the people that complimented me on my MINI. It was weird - nearly every person I stopped for at a crosswalk said, “nice car” or gave me the thumbs-up, as did several other non-MINI motorists. At nearly every place that I stopped, people would crowd around to check it out and ask questions. I drove my MINI near the end of the Santa Monica Pier and parked in front of a no parking sign to take a picture. When I turned around a police officer was standing there. I thought, “OH $hite, ticket time.” Nope, she was just admiring the MINI! She said, “great shot” and walked away. I actually had one person ask me to take a picture of her and her friends with it. Thinking she was a tourist since she had a camera with her, I asked where she was from. “5th and Ashland,” she said. And the funny thing is, I saw several other MINIs around, so it is not like I was driving the Mars Rover or anything. Which brings me to another point, every other MINI owner that I encountered was very friendly, giving me an enthusiastic wave, flash, or both. What a great place!

 

I've only had two random people compliment me on my car. One was some teenager who said "Nice cooper" and the other was an older lady who liked it because it was all the same color (even though my roof is black and the rest is green.)

Today though I had something weird happen. I was walking to put something in my car between starbucks and going to church, and this older Indian lady asked me if I liked my "german designed car." I said sure, and then what she said next I really couldn't understand, something about germans, hitler, zionists, khaki pants ... it was rather strange. I couldn't really tell if she was insulting me or just trying to make conversation, but I started leaning towards the insulting side and said "whatever" and walked away. Weird stuff.

 

People walk up to me when they see me get out of my MINI and ask how I like it
All the time,great fun.
I've owned lots of cars and trucks ,import and domestic,this MINI just gets folks talking
to ya

 

You guys are invited to come to Hawaii and enjoy the MINIs here. People in our area (MINIlani) are friendly and often wave and stop to talk. Most of the time we know whose MINI is zipping by as we can easily keep tabs on one another.
But there are always a few closet MINIs tucked away that don't get ot come to play too often.