>>>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...)
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>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.

The older ones were half gokarts - meant as a compliment, esp the Cooper ones. If you were able to drive a pleasure, but not really a car you could rely on to start whenever you needed it (similar to Alfa on both counts). Had to help starting sometimes esp. under weather conditions not really pleasant, but also had the pleasure of driving one of the Mini Mokes in Spain (with beautiful weather and no trouble). The moke really felt like a gokart - not even doors...