My wife and I have been Mini aficionados since 2004. She owned an '04 JCW when I met her and we eventually got an '06 JCW about 3 years ago. Living in NYC with a JCW tuned car with 18" rims and performance tires was not exactly a pleasure. For those who have never driven in the pot hole strewn NYC area there has been many a tire casualty on the roads.

We decided to move on to another Mini. We have liked the Clubman's a lot since they were released a few years ago and we finally decided to pull the trigger. The Rally Edition was something that caught our eye from the beginning, it had pretty much all the features we wanted. Before we even picked up the car my wife had named it. A good sign we were going to buy it.

We picked up Grimly Fiendish this weekend at Prestige Mini in NJ. The main things we wanted to change from the JCW was the suspension, wheels, and tires. Having the all season tires on 17" rims and the newer suspension was a big help. We bought our '06 from Prestige and really didn't have any big plans to go back there to make a purchase. Fortunately for us we were so taken with the level of service we recently got from Mark the Service Manager there that it inspired us to buy our new car from them! I'll gladly get into it should anyone care to know.

As I was in negotiations to purchase the car I found out that when the Rally was released some dealers did not want them. Prestige, which boasts itself as the biggest mini dealer in the US last year, decided to ask around and see if other dealers wanted to try and sell the Rally or pass it off to them. At one point they had 7 Rallys! When we bought ours they had 3 of the Northern/Winter versions and 2 Southern/Summer versions. If you are unfamiliar with the difference, the Winter version has the black crown spoke wheels, all season tires, and the cold weather package. The Summer version has no cold weather package and instead has black web spokes with performance tires. The version sold in the North was important to us as we often drive in cold wet winters and the heated options are very nice to have. Plus the webspoke wheels have a silver rim and that just adds one more item to black out!

We immediately switched out the luggage basket as we only need to haul bikes, not roof luggage. I am pleased with the roof rails. They allow the roof rack system to be easily moved back and forth or removed entirely by loosening four allen bolts. Next we plan on doing quite a bit of black out work to make our dark little Grimly even darker.

I have been pleased with some little differences between the 1st Gen and the 2nd Gen cars. The head rests are actually useable on the 2nd Gen, not 2 inches too far back. The arm rests on the door are designed to allow the arm more comfort. The power of the S feels very nice. The suspension feels good too, although I was coming from a much more aggressive set up. The roof rails and their flexibility. The base support system was also designed much better, ease of adjustability. Exterior has a nicer, cleaner look in the front as well. The better iPod adapter. Oh, and I like the hidden compartment in the dash.

Some of the things I'm not as fond of are the interior air and radio controls. Has anyone ever painted their buttons and ***** black? I dislike how cheap these controls look. I also dislike how the 'Sport' button needs to be pressed every time you get in the car (I plan on getting the sport-always-on upgrade soon). I'm not sure if it's the fact that this is only an S as opposed to a JCW but the feel of the cars handling is better in the JCW. I'd love to drive a 2nd Gen JCW Clubman to compare. Not to say the S feels bad, it has a great and responsive feel. The JCW just had a tighter responsive feel. I miss this responsiveness but I don't miss the harsh suspension feel.

Anyway , here are some photos!

 

First of all - I hate you very much!

Second of all, SHE'S A BEAUT!!

 

DITTO!

 

Trying to make it darker you say. Ditch the stripes, or if you must keep stripes, go with flat black. Tint the wheel arch lights too and go with as dark of a tint as you legally can. Looks good so far!!!

 

Love it!

 

I fell in love with the Rally Edition when i saw one at AMVIV, i want it!

 

I WANT THAT CAR!!!!

I'll hug Caroline when I get back in her tonight for thinking about cheating but WOW that car is amazing!!!

 

Congrats, looks really nice! I'm really digging the custom side scuttles

 

I haven't seen to much about the Rally edition on here, only bit and pieces. This is how it comes! Which is awesome. We want to black it out, going so far as to have the bike rack anodized black to keep with the motif. I will keep updating this thread as I get further along with the black out mods. There were only 70 Rally edition Clubmans made, one for each US dealer. Like I said above Prestige has some more of these if you are having that crazy itch.

 

I need that lime-neon green paint code for some future projects!

- Erik

 

I just wanted to say I think that this is one of the nicest second gen MINI's I have seen - period. She is HOT!

 

DAMN thats one hot looking car. AWESOME. Congrats
Wish that was mine

 

Totally cool ride . Love the lime green mirrors and scuttles.

 

Wow...I must say, I'm not a fan of blacked-out everything, but that's pretty badass!

 

Was that the last one they had? Was this off the showroom floor?

And I am glad that Mark is nice to other customers. Because he has been a big d-i-c-k to me.

 

Onefish2: It was not the last one. According to them they had 2 more of the "winter" version and 2 of the "summer" version in stock. I saw in person 1 of each of them. This did come off of the showroom floor though. It had 11 miles on it .

Regarding Mark, his mechanics missed an issue with our struts on our previous car while they were changing the tires. Something they should have seen. We had 3 years of pretty good service from them and between the sale of new tires (the dude talked down to my wife, big mistake) and the missed issue we called Mark and told him we were done. We were going to never return. He stepped up and showed some great customer service skills like we had never seen before. For some reason we got on his best side and he has had our back. We only deal with him or his new right hand man Angel. If neither of them are there we will happily call back. In fact pretty much the only reason we bought the Rally there was because we can count on such good service from Mark. What has been your experiences with him?

 

Congrats, I just saw one at the dealer today, looks awesome

 

This past winter I decided to swap the factory/hypersport aero kit that came with my car for the JCW aero kit. I had received a postcard in the mail from Morristown MINI. It offered 20% off installed accessories this also included 20% off for labor. So I trade a ton of emails with both my SA and the body shop manager at Prestige over this. In retrospect I should have just called. So we go back and forth and back and forth over the discounted price. Why would we need to do this if I they agreed to the 20% off from the coupon?

Mark writes this nasty email to me stating that they were going to absorb the cost of a part for the aero kit that they forgot to order and that there would be no further discussion about price.

The JCW aero kit V2 was on national back order so they ordered the earlier version of the aero kit which does not include the updated brake ducts or newer splitter. I clearly stated I wanted the updated aero kit with brake ducts and new splitter. They never told me this (that the newer part was back ordered) and that mystery part that they absorbed the cost on was the brake duct kit.

I also needed to bring my car back again because they put the wrong splitter on the car. So I paid another $60 on top of the $3600 to paint and install the JCW aero kit with carbon fiber rear diffuser and matte black wheel arches. They did install the new splitter, no extra charge for labor.

A few weeks after the work was completed I brought the car back because the paint was chipping off. He made some smarmy comment. But in the end they agreed to re-paint it.

Then a few weeks later the JCW mesh side scuttle just fell off. They replaced it under warranty.

Then a few weeks after that I notice that the ram-air lips (those plastic parts you see hanging down from the front underside of the car, they divert air around the car) were never installed. So I bring it back and point this out to them. What is his response to me. I am not replacing anything else that may have "fallen off" your car. After we put this part on.

Nice attitude Mark. Great way to keep a customer that has spent thousands of dollars on accessories and installation of those accessories.

I have no choice but to continue to have my car serviced there. Its about 15 minutes from my house and they always give me loaner cars.

Everyone else is very nice to me there. I do not know what his problem is.

 

THAT is a great looking clubman!

 

Nice car, but I gotta be honest - those lime green mirror caps are WAY fugly. Nahhhhh, forget fugly, think DOUBLE FUGLY. I do, however, like the splitter up front, but I would have gone with some chrome up front to brighten 'er up a bit.

And, that roof rack has GOT TO GO. I cannot think of a quicker way to take a 36 mpg highway car and turn it into a 32 mpg highway car. If you need to carry that much stuff with you car, you bought the wrong car. Get one of those butt-ugly Neons or something similar if you need to carry so much kit around.

But hey, other than that, it's one very nice looking car. Just ditch those lime green accents, they TOTALLY f-up what is basically a good-looking ride...

-RW-

 

"Funny how styling opinions seem to have more weight here than person's own objective on how to use one's vehicle..."

Atom Keep the lime; it keeps the Rally Edition spunk; otherwise it'll be like any other blacked-out Clubby.
Second, MATCH the rack to the lime; that would be killer!

- Erik

 

rlw: It has always been our plan to swap the green mirror caps to body color. We bought them with the car and they just finished painting them this week. We will keep the green ones for those times when we are feeling "fugly"

As far as the roof rack goes, I am an avid mountain biker and often bring friends with me. A bicycle roof rack is a necessary tool for me. With the roof rail design I am able to easily remove the racks at will. When I am going places without the need for bikes I take the rack off. I took these photos minutes after fitting the bike rack. A muddy bike in the back of my car just isn't going to work.

 

Great car, ignore the haters...
Rack is fully functional and removable...
Lime Green Mirror caps and scuttles are unique and eye-catching..

Always consider the source when it comes to critiques..

Enjoy your ride, it smokes...

 

I couldn't love the lime green accents any more if I tired. Very, very cool.

 

HAWT.