Item — HN Reader

>I joked when I moved to Seattle that the main problem is since there is no salt, there are still Citations on the road and that is unnatural. Their place in the natural order is the junk yard.

This was the fate of many British Leyland cars, even the ones that people genuinely liked such as as the classic Mini and the MGB were practically hygroscopic.

2 comments

I will say I was somewhat delighted by the number of good looking mustangs and british roadsters there were. And so many Beetles. My roadster had a little too much bondo for my liking.

I loved the Mini, but I loved my Maxi even more. That was the most useful car ever bar none.

I didn't realize the Countryman was bigger than a midsized sedan until I parked next to one the other day. Walking back to my car something seemed off. Wait, that's a Mini??

None of the 'Mini's' are Mini. They're just BMW that bought the brand and builds cars loosely inspired on the original, with sizes ranging from 1.25 times the original all the way up to definitely non-Mini crossovers. Our company had one of the smaller ones as a lease car and even though it drove ok'ish it definitely didn't feel or drive like a small car. It was a way for BMW to appeal more to women (with that demographic BMW never really caught on) who loved the original Mini to bits. And then wealthy women want a larger but still trendy car.

BMW is hyper aggressive about the brand, including going after each and every use of the brand for the original cars, even when used in the context of spare parts.

I think about eight, ten years ago they stopped being mini when collision safety laws changed. They had to raise the hood for pedestrian safety (hitting legs and spinning heads into the windshield is not allowed) and raise the door height for side impact safety. The whole car got normal sized because of it and then they just kinda said fuck it.