Sweet! That's some pretty work.

 

Yes, thats pretty cool.

 

That looks awesome. The distressed look came out great.

 

My wife's 05 MCS may have given up the ghost today (got home too late to check it out). It conked out while she was driving home. Starter sounds like it's making noise like it's trying to work, but the engine doesn't turn over. I don't usually jump to the worst, but I'm concerned that the engine locked up. In anticipation, I was looking around for a replacement Mini. Located an '08 JCW Sidewalk R52 w/Aero package with a build date of 07/05/08, Astro Black Metallic with Black Panther English Leather. Car was originally sold in MD. Price seems reasonable for 99K miles, but the carfax shows some suspect behavior. 5 owners, some of them only a few months, lots of visits to a dealer with various parts replaced. Like someone has been hunting a problem for several years. I suspect this is could be one of the last 100. To be honest I had never even heard of this until I just went looking for "sidewalk" edition. Seems like a pretty cool rare car.....also worried about buying someone's headache. Guess I'm just looking at a gut check here how special these cars really are.

 

Yes it has a badge and is special edition but it is not the GP and buying one speculating that the price is going to go up may be the best idea. The facelift Gen1, which the 08 R52 falls into, is a good car.

 

Yeah I wasn't looking at it as a get rich scheme or as a long term investment really....just curious if the risk of it being a lemon of some sort was balanced enough by the relative "rareness" of it. Pricewise, I would be considering it like any other JCW/S car. Ultimately this will be a daily driver for the wife. Thanks for the reply!

 

It also has a unique illuminated sill plate with your car's number on it indicating it's car X of the last 100 for both doors. It also has black panther leather sidewalk edition seats which are pretty sweet IMHO.

May not be worth much more but it is still a pretty unique vehicle.

Plus if you must have a convertible, like I do, the GT is no good.

 

Finally ready for use, took a while to get my title from California but she is officially ready.

Replaced struts and mounts (and tie rod end I messed up in the process)

Ready for many days of fun in the future!

 

Just realized mine's custom door sills are in German!

 

Nice fine. These things are so rare and I really like when someone added the factory aero kit.

 

Does anyone know the actual chassis/vin numbers of "last of the supercharged" I have an 08 with a later in the year production date, its a sidewalk edition, but sparkling silver metalic color with malt brown interior. Wondering if I'm #101...

 

One other question for the group... I know how to find build date in month/year, but I see some posts showing mm/dd/yy. How would I find out the day?

 

Put the last 7 of your VIN in http://bimmer.work/

My '08 is 4-27-2008. Almost 10 years old!

 

Thanks, Bimmer.


But now I'm more confused. The decoder says my production date was 7/22/08, which is later than some of the dates I've seen people post. Is it possible that this should be called Last of the JCW Supercharged?

 

I found this:

http://www.motoringfile.com/2008/08/...oduction-line/

Last one is a white silver. Article was posted 8-7-2008. If that's the real picture, looks like an base automatic (no auto climate and no 3 pedals).

http://libraryofmotoring.info/facts/chronology/ confirms 8-7-2008 was when last one rolled off the line.

 

Well, that confirms it. The article states that the last car was a Cooper S Convertible, White Silver metallic color. So the LOSC were not the actual last. hope that doesn't burst any bubbles...

 

The pics in the article look like generic pics because they're of a non-supercharged car.

I think there's some confusion between the Last of the Supercharged limited edition and one of the last supercharged R52's built. The LOTS edition were Astro Black, Black Panther English Leather,JCW, Sidewalk package, black top, black wheels, with special badging and limited to 100 cars, not necessarily the last 100 supercharged cars built.

edit: From the post above I see I took too long to reply

 

I recently got a 2008 JCW Sidewalk and have discovered that the previous owners replaced the sill plates. I figure it's a long shot but I'm not sure if there's any other way to find what number out of 100 my car is. Any help would be appreciated!

 

Congrats! Might be able to find the original dealer and find out.

 

Is $7,500 a good price for one in very good condition these days?

 

Been trying to baby the stripes but they’re pretty cracked. Keep thinking of pulling them off.

Stripes
j

what do y’all think?

 

When I bought mine the stripes were really cracked to hell. They were a pain to remove and unfortunately left a dark trace on the paint.

I installed new stripes to cover the marks. So far I am loving my replacement stripes.

 

I removed a set of stripes this week. Not a LotSC, but similar cracks. It took 3 hours, a heat gun, a helper, and a lot of patience. Little pieces at a time.

if you pull them, expect to have paint fade. Personally if it were my car, I’d invest the time to remove and then replace with a better quality vinyl. These stripes were not done at the factory, and aren’t the same quality as OEM.

 

This is very good advice! One other helpful tip - park the hood in direct sun on a warm day for an hour or two to heat up the whole area evenly. You'll find it comes much easier.

 

I know this thread is old, but is there a registry of the LOTSC Minis?
Ran across one, but the sill plate doesn't have the numbers on it. It is the LOTSC sill plate, just doesn't have numbers.
The last 7 of the VIN are TU81557.
I know that #66 is TU81590, and I don't believe that the VINS were sequential.