So I found this poor little guy on a fireroad up Highway 2 in the San Gabriel's. Took a good tumble down a ravine: http://dav.me/mini

Two things:
1) Anyone know the story?

2) Wrench/Sawzall field trip?

Be happy to show you where it's at. You'd be providing public service by cleaning up trash on wilderness land, right?

 

Man, that is horrible! I hope they come to get it.

 

Yeah, I wish I'd thought to grab the VIN. Intact VIN might have indicated intent...

There's a suspicious lack of door logo.

 

There's a lot stripped off of it.
I'm glad you didn't find any bodies.

 

Could it be stolen or insurance funny business?

 

I once saw a brand new Hemi pickup wedged waaaay down a vertical mine shaft.

 

I'd contact Red Bull corporate and tell them about it. If not, report it to the police.

 

I'd skip Red Bull corporate and report it directly to the police.
After the police report and after the insurance company has completed their work, isn't someone sent in to salvage and clean up the site?
Is it legal in CA to abandon wrecked vehicles?
Who's responsible for cleaning up after accidents?
Very curious...

 

So I'm like, "Yo holmes, need some fuses, or a spare block?"

And y'all are like "Lets do the right thing and go to lots of effort for nothing to report it and maybe possibly clean this mess up, but probably not."

You guys sure are standup folks. Gives me warm fuzzies inside.

If I'm back there again (likely), I'll try to locate a VIN and exact GPS location to give to the police, they probably can't do much without it.

 

haha thats pretty crazy, any good parts?

 

I thought that out in CA y'all got in a snit about garbage laying around.
The first part I noticed missing was the Red Bull can.
Then the wheel arches.
But there's probably plenty left on there to salvage.
But hey, I like to take a superior moral attitude from time to time.
It makes me feel good about myself for doing absolutely nothing.

 

One of these sold on Ebay recently.. *searching ebay*

 

I'm going to send an e-mail to Red Bull about it and see what they say. It is crappy that their car has been left out there to rot and they need to get on it and recover it properly.

 

davantalus, can you please re-post the pics? I would like to get this thing recovered.

 

Re-post? They're still there. Just click the link.

Feel free to contact them - you might get a lead at best... however the car was clearly de-badged of all redbull imagery before the crash. My guess is that redbull has nothing to do with this.

 

Did anyone notice that none of the airbags deployed?

 

I don't see that in completed motors listings... got a link?


Interesting. I guess you'd have to know under exactly what conditions the airbag deploys. Otherwise could argued both ways right? "It was off and they rolled it down the hill, no power => no airbag etc." vs. "Oh, it didn't trigger the accelerometers deploy-airbag logic correctly."

Edit: Now I'm noticing the side curtains too... maybe you're right.

Not that it matters in this case - but do convertible mini's have the pop-up rollbar that the 3-series does? It's too bad this wasn't a convertible for our picture-forensics purposes.
http://content.bmwusa.com/microsite/...n/rollbar.html

 

Weird, must have been my office blocking it.

The ones that I have seen up close the "can" was removable and the red bull logos were magnetic. If that was one of their cars and they were selling it, they would have likely painted the color off of it. Worth a shot though... I doubt I will hear from them.

 

Here's one for sale in FL, logos removed but not the paint job. I don't know if it ever sold or not. There's a link in here to one for sale in TX that has been repainted.
http://www.sunshineminis.org/forums/...edbull#p359163

 

Yeah, they basically said it isn't theirs. Guess the only thing to do is report it to the police so they can find out who it belongs to.

 

I'd tell you to grab that steering wheel airbag and send it to me but I'm sure the morality police would have a hissy.

 

Why? Someone clearly abandoned it. Get what you can! Then again, they didn't deploy which isn't a good sign.

 

Looks like I'll be back there on Monday evening. I'll grab any VIN numbers I can find (Can anyone tell me the non-obvious locations?) and inspect a little closer.

PM me if you're in SoCal and want to see it. (Strange that nobody actually IN SoCal has responded (even if they have their own forum)).

 

Look for the VIN in the driver side lower corner of the windshield.

 

I am strangely addicted to this thread.
No idea why.
I guess it's just such an intriguing mystery.