The competition is now much cheaper, plus VW don't normally knock out this type of limited special edition. Wonder who will buy it.
You just have..... The Mini Challenge is just another Mini GP, now with a back seat. All part of the German strategy to have a Mini in every possible shape, size, colour and style that appeals to every social class and price point. Mostly women though.
It really doesn't matter about marketing, social class, image etc... If you like the driving experience and are not bothered about what other people may think, then why not ? I quite like the way the hot MINIs drive, including on track. Plenty of billies out there who buy them and track them despite the image, and that includes women.
Other than the odd popular race series, you just don't see that many modern ones on track days though. The only time I've been in one with a bloke driving, he kept mistaking my knee for the gear lever.... The newer stuff is all just a bit too boutique and designer handbag.
I see a surprising number of them on track days - have a quick look at minitorque, many members track some serious MINI metal - they really don't seem to care too much about boutique/handbag connotations. And why would they ?
A quick check of the attendance list for next 5 trackdays with Javelin has about 5 Minis out of a total of about 350 cars Nick. They are not the usual fodder.
I watched that AutoCar video on this last night and I was a little disappointed that the only microphone for the video was Steve's helmet mic'. From the video though it looked very composed and very quick for a FWD car out of the apex. I love my RenaultSports but I'm a car guy so brand doesn't matter me...be it Mini, VW, Honda etc. I think it'll be a cracking car and with the VAG following I don't see the price being a problem or depreciation for that matter...the MK5 R32's are a great example of that.
Five stars for it in this months Evo mag, must be decent, but it is a tad expensive, there was a Mini GP at Oulton on Wednesday going really well.
I was at Bedford on Monday this week and I though there were quite a few MINIs on the Javelin day. 14 x Renault (10 Clio, 4 Megane) 12 x BMW (5 3-Series, 6 Mini, 1 Unknown) 11 x Porsche (5 911, 3 Cayman, 3 Boxster) 10 x Lotus (4 Exige, 3 Elise, 2 7, 1 340R) 9 x Ford (6 Fiesta, 2 Focus, 1 Mustang) 7 x Caterham (3 R300, 1 R500, 1 7, 2 Unknown) 6 x Mazda (4 MX-5, 2 RX-7) They were all really well prepared and pretty quick. The Lohen ones in particular, who have grown a great reputation over the years for making modern MINIs very trackable. Maybe it was a blip but that kind of matches my perception that MINIs are well represented both in quantity and quality on UK track days.
How many of those Minis were off a race series though Nick? You see lots of them clustered up for a bit of testing on the cheap.
Yes, which is naughty and upsets the billies... In this instance none were race cars, they usually fail on static noise anyway ! It might still have been a minitorque cluster though!!
