>>Ah yes I forgot you told me before you had a Mini Cooper. Curious - did you test drive the Fiat 500 before you got the Mini Cooper? I've driven both and liked the Mini a lot better - but I haven't tried one of the turbo Fiats.
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>>I have driven nothing but Mini Coopers for the last 14 years :)
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>Pure curiosity: Was the first one already one of Beamer production or did you get the bug by an english original ? (not implying Andy, but the earlier Rover/Austin cars...)

Those older ones are not bad cars either. I remember seeing a few of these at a race track years ago - some were getting better lap times than the Porsche 911's!! This was at the Hallett race track in Oklahoma - has like 10 turns and is a little less than 2 miles long, and some pretty serious elevation changes too - a pretty demanding track - but geeze those mini's were fast on that track.