That's pretty good!!

 

I took delivery of my 1st MCS and went to see the movie the day it opened......ironically I took delivery of my 3rd MCS when this thread was started.

 

very early owners will remember that we got invitations to a special 'pre-screening' of the movie in many locations.

the dealer in VA Beach had a pre-show reception and many MINI showed up - 50 plus. After some finger food we caravaned to a theater where we had an exclusive showing of IJ2 .... and after some of us were asked for our comments. A 50 MINI parade was a traffic stopper at that time!

 

I've wanted a Mini since the original 'Italian Job' film with Michael Caine came out back in 1969... Always had a things for them and now I've got an S model...

 

I watched the Italian Job.
Without disclosing my age, I remember back in the 60's when we squeezed five of us into an original Austin Cooper. Interesting enough the kid that owned it was wanting to be a mechanic and he was also French. We called him Frenchie. Who ever thought I would own a MINI with some of that Peugeot heritage.

 

Cute story. I watched the original at the local theater. At the time I was the ride for all of my buddies and we'd all squeeze into my old Singer convertible. Never thought I'd be lucky enough to end up with a descendant of my mothers old memories.

 

I was not familiar with the Singer Convertible, so I did a search and came up with 1958-Singer-Gazelle-III-Landau-Convertible, a red and white two tone.
Also a good story.

 

That's probably the same pic that's in my gallery. I wanted my grandson to see what I bombed around in during the 60's and have no pictures of mine.
To make a long, long story short, both myself and the Singer ended up in Idaho, years ago. After a few very good years with it, it ended up burning in a garage that was working on it. I got paid $350.00 frm their insurance, exactly what I paid for it. From the rubble I scrounged the front grill which hung on my wall for years and the Singer inlaid insignia, which is in my Cooper.

 

Our MINI was on the first shipment to our dealer back in '02 before the new one came out. Drove it to the theater when the movie came out.

 

mmm... were the Mini's the little cars that kept blocking the view of Charlize??

 

Bumpin' up an old thread because every once in a while Ill see a few clips from the movie, particularly the chase scenes. I always cringe when the cars jump off stuff because I have this high doubt that the suspension and wheels would be able to survive those jumps without major damage to the suspension and wheel area of the car. I mean I recently had a wheel replaced because some guy jumped out from the traffic line i was passing and just our front wheels smacked into each other. So what's the real story on the modifications on the cars for the movie?

 

They used over 30 Mini's to make the movie. Three of them were converted to electric motors because the City of Los Angles would not allow gasoline powered vehicles in the subway tunnels. Several of the cars were right hand drive with fake steering and pedals on the left. Stunt drivers drove the cars so the actors could be filmed in the "driver's" seat. The actors also had about three weeks of high speed driver training in the cars. Reports say that Charlize Theron was by far the best driver.

 

What about suspension mods? I highly doubt street run MINI's could take a 6ft drop on to hard concrete without some sort of suspension/undercarriage damage.

 

Ever since I realized what a MINI was, a few years ago, I loved them. I always wanted one, but figured it was just another dream car. The Italian Job is one of my fav movies, mostly because of Mark Wahlberg (yummy). When I first saw it, I don't remember when, I fell in love even more with the MINI's. Still figured I'd never get one.

When I bought my second car in 2008, a 2005 Mazda3 hatch, for some reason the MINI never came to mind. Sometimes I wish it had, cuz I'm sure I could have found one with the loan I obtained from my bank lol! But it's kinda good, cuz I didn't know how to drive stick then, so I would have ended up with an auto. I would have just found myself selling it later on and buying a manual lol.

Now that I have a manual MINI, I can't imagine driving an auto :P
So yay for me! Also, I decided I wanted Indi Blue because Marky Mark drives the blue one Yeah, I'll be getting white stripes, but not the regular ones. They'll be fun and different

 

Polepino. I'll bet they did not bother with suspension mods. The movie cost 60 million dollars. At 20 grand apiece, Mini's are cheap. (They might have been free) and they only have to last for several minutes.

 

They modified the suspensions to handle the weight of the bars.

 

So funny, anytime a friend of ours sees our new MINI, they ask if we have seen "The Italian Job." Actually saw it on DVD as part of an Italy movie-fest prior to going on holiday in Italy several years ago. So, viewing it was more about the Italy angle than (prepare yourselves) raging driving in a cool set of wheels. My bad.

 

I'll never forget the MINI exhibit at the Miami beach convention center carshow in 03, they had the aero pack jcw R50 cooper, I instantly fell in love with it. I took all the collectible cards they were giving away and still have them to this day. I would configure my own almost everyday on the website. My mom had a classic Mini in british racing green with the white stripes and roof and I had watched the original Italian Job so after i saw the new one I was completely hooked, I knew i needed an Jcw R50 with R90s and the aero grill... 6 years later i finally got my Liquid yellow aero grilled r50, still in the process of making it into my dream cooper!

 

i realized (after getting a mini) that only 1 of the 3 minis where supercharged in that movie!... yet, when you check the scene where they are "beefing" them up, they all have the same upgrade components laid out :P

 

I drive my daughter's R50 from time to time - I love these cars, wish I could get one, but I need a small SUV right now. When that is gone, I would be a MINI owner