i want this limo

would love to join those ladies.

http://www.heimsnet.is/hafst/MiniLimmo/

Thats pretty sweet

I'd hit it.

Is it still called a mini?

A mini Extreme or Extra mini

biggie?

Maxi...

..Pad

thats almost, almost as cool as the rx-7 limo in the back of SCC a year or so ago

Sweet but i doubt a FWD mini can haul that around.

I would imagine that they modded the drivetrain...

Why would you want it? By converting it to a limo, you have ruined everything that makes the car appealing!

This is much cooler...

http://www.ak-miramare.hr/baca/vslike/zanim/limo.jpg

It's funny that even stretched out, it still can't manage to take up a full parking space...

/\ that one's better!

Maxi...

History lesson.Austin Maxi.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v11/taranaki/naki/austin_maxi_01.jpg

I had one that colour briefly.It was nothing but trouble.In the end we welded the flywheel on, put a ratchet strap over the front mudguards to stop the bonnet from blowing open,towed it to another part of the country and used it for a minimum trade in.The guy wasn't too happy to give us 3 grand for it, but we held him to it.

Back on topic...

This is a mini limo.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v11/taranaki/naki/182b2960.jpg

So is this

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v11/taranaki/naki/minilimo.jpg

That thing that kitted has shown is a bastard son of a BMW,and should NOT be called a Mini. Minis were cutting edge technology and thinking outside the box.The pale imitation behind today's badge is a stodgy piece of badge-engineered mediocrity.Id rather push a true mini than drive a fake one.

but... but... if they're a... BMW... they can't be all that bad... unless new BMWs are far inferior to their ancestors... which just can't possibly be true!

Minis were cutting edge technology and thinking outside the box
Other than their unique suspension I don't see what was so cutting edge or outside of the box for them - they're basically England's Trabant.

Disagree...that title would have to go to the Reliant Robin

they're basically England's Trabant.

England's....civic?

:p

WTF are you shooting at in your sig Naki?

bloke, nice.

Disagree...that title would have to go to the Reliant Robin

No, even Trabant engineers knew that cars are supposed to have four wheels...

England's....civic?

No, Hondas engineers learned enough over the decades that they could periodically redesign and improve the civic - the Mini on the other hand :grinno: - heck even IFA knew well enough that there was no point in producing the trabant anymore by the time 1991 rolled around :lol:
Of course considering what BMC was like, it'd surprise me if any of the upper management even realised they were still making the Mini in 1991...

No, Hondas engineers learned enough over the decades that they could periodically redesign and improve the civic - the Mini on the other hand :grinno: - heck even IFA knew well enough that there was no point in producing the trabant anymore by the time 1991 rolled around :lol:
Of course considering what BMC was like, it'd surprise me if any of the upper management even realised they were still making the Mini in 1991...

pwnage :biggrin:

Of course considering what BMC was like, it'd surprise me if any of the upper management even realised they were still making the Mini in 1991...

Well...BMC had long since ceased to exist in 1991,the production of Mini's having changed to the Rover Group in 1986.The Mini existed in production until 2000, selling a respectable 600 units a week until BMW dismantled the Rover group,and hijacked the brand name for its bland little eurobox.

The REAL mini came in literally dozens of different variants,each one true to the original body design,and each clearly recognisable as a Mini.

From the first Mini released in 1959 to the final car off the line in October 2000, 5.5 million of these exceptional little vehicles were made.
To compare them to a Trabant is just plain silly.The trabi was a nasty little plastic car with an underpowered 2 stroke motor.It evolved into a nasty little plastic car with a VW Polo motor. Even in a heavily regulated market,the Trabi only manged 3 million sales.The mini sold more,lasted longer, drove faster,accelerated better[well,accelerated ....not a term you would ever use when refering to a Trabant] and continued to sell against all competition long after its 'successor' model, the Metro, was dead and buried.When exposed to international competition,sales for the Trabant fell apart.Not surprising really, because the cars did exactly the same.

The Mini racked up up an impressive racing pedigree, the Trabant racked up an impressive list of common faults.While I certainly owned and enjoyed Minis,wild horses would not drag me into purchasing a trabi [unless they were harnessed to the front bumper to improve power]. As for the German - owned pretender....Nah.Drove it once,didn't like it.I'm more into family saloons now.If I wanted a hobby car tor classic rallying, I'd seriously look at a Mini Cooper.It is,in theory,still possible to build one yourself from scratch.It may be possible to build yourself a brand new Trabant....but why bother?

pwnage :biggrin:

Could have been,SiGNAL,if only 2SB had half of his facts right. :evillol:

http://www.thebeast.uk.com/Other/vettelimo/

This one is ten times better :D

,lasted longer, drove faster,accelerated better
Compare the acceleration between a 1960's Trabant 601, and a 1960's Mini Minor, and you'll see that the Mini is only a gnats hair quicker than Trabant (which was still faster than say a Fiat 500 or Citroen 2cv) Never mind that the trabant had a useable boot, and was a (slightly) bigger car at a (slightly) lower price.
As for the sale figures - the Mini had a definate edge, because it's production started half a decade before the 601's (The Trabant) and ended a decade after, had communism not fallen for a another fifteen years, it's possible the Trabant production could have equalled that of the Mini.
I could say that the Mini was England's Wartburg, but it's more like Eastern Germany's Morris 1100!

I can't believe that you are comparing the Mini with the Trabant. The mini has shaped generations, been the centrepiece of fashions and trends since its launch. Nobody can argue with the success of the Mini, nor can you argue with the success of the BMW Mini.

Lets think, wonder how big the Trabant owners club is compared to that of the Mini. You cant re-write history, the Mini has proven itself, where others have failed.

As for the sale figures - the Mini had a definate edge, because it's production started half a decade before the 601's (The Trabant) and ended a decade after, had communism not fallen for a another fifteen years, it's possible the Trabant production could have equalled that of the Mini.

The Trabant had a far better edge,and well you know it,you bad man. Why did Trabant cease production? Because Germany re-unified. Suddenly,East Germans had access to a whole range of new and used vehicles that were far superior to the only mass-produced East German car. The butt fell out of the Trabant market.If the Trabant had been released in an unregulated market,it would have died within weeks.
The Trabant was only a success because the competitors were all shut out.Its export sales were negligible.The Mini sold in bulk around the world,and remained a prized import to the Japanese[probably the finest car making nation in the world] right up to its axing in 2000.

Mini vs Trabant.....?pffffft.No contest.

ok..you guys are confusing me now.

..so which one of them got pwnzed?

Actually, in East Germany, a wide variety of cars were available, and one of them was actually being made in East Germany - the Wartburg. You could have purchased a Skoda if you had enough money and were willing to wait for it, or you could have purchsed a Zaz (even worse than a Trabant) - but nobody wanted those.
The mini has shaped generations, been the centrepiece of fashions and trends since its launch. Nobody can argue with the success of the Mini, nor can you argue with the success of the BMW Mini.
The Mini is the most highly over rated car ever built. It's not a bad car mind you, it's just given far more credit than it deserves. If you want to talk about forming trends, DKW was making front wheel drive cars with the engines mounted transversly since the first world war - the Mini is commonly and innapropriately credited as being the first front wheel drive car to feature a transverse mounted engine (which is already wrong, because DKW had been doing it first in mass production, and even the 1877 car patented by George Selden in the U.S. featured a transverse mounted engine driving the front wheels) in conjunction with unit body construction - wrong again, even the SAAB 92 featured this building technique a decade before the Mini was produced.
Never mind the fact that NOBODY copied the MINI!!! Almost all of the front wheel drive cars we have today can trace their roots to copies and adaptations of DKW's original idea of having a two cylinder engine mounted transversely driving the front wheels. The SAAB 92 was inspired by DKW, the Suzuki Suzulight and the Fronte that followed it were DKW inspired designs - Honda's first front driver? You guessed it, a two cylinder engine mounted transversely driving the front wheels... Even the Trabant used a two cylinder engine mounted transversely driving the front wheels.
I now point out that VW bought DKW, and had DKW's engineers help them design the first postwar audis, and eventually help VW make the Golf and Polo...
The Mini is certainly a cool car, and a fun car to drive - but that's about it. It's not technically innovative, it didn't really affect the automotive industry as a whole and like many British cars is praised for shortcomings that enthusiasts will condemn other cars for having (The Trabant is small and noisy - what a crappy car - the Mini is small and noisy, what character and charm):)
I really don't know why people will pick on the Trabant, and then glorify cars like the VW beetle and the Mini.
I should also note that true to DKW form, modern cars have their gears located in a gearbox - rather than in the engine's oil sump :) - more "classic british charm" on the Mini's part I guess.

I dont think thats the point really. And what has fasion got to do with engineering. The mini went the extra mile. It had the x factor that made it a global succses. Neat packaging and clever marketing made short work of crap like the Trabant.

The image of Twiggy sprawled out on the front of a Mini was ultra cool. Twiggy on a Trabant! Nahh. London to Brighton in Trabants, Nahh! 5 million Trabants by 1987, You must be kidding...

Perhaps it because you are a yank that you don't see the Mini for what it is. You are totaly wrong to compare them. Even if the Trabant was fundamentaly better, where is it now? No where near the Mini!

Its like comparing the Titanic to the QE2. Titanic could have been way more luxuious than the QE2. But where is it now...

You are totaly wrong to compare them.
They're remarkably similiar. They're both small, they're both fun to drive, they're both incredibly ugly, they were both cheap to buy and run. One get's respected for no reason at all, and the other is always being put down for no reason at all. I've yet to have anyone explain to me why a Trabant is such a bad car using reasons that actually make sense.

Perhaps it because you are a yank that you don't see the Mini for what it is.
I see the mini exactly for what it is. A small, noisy, cramped, ugly piece of tin that's fun to drive. At least I'm not seeing what isn't there and giving the car credit it doesn't deserve.
Even if the Trabant was fundamentaly better, where is it now? No where near the Mini!
The Trabant and Mini are fundamentally similiar, but I wouldn't say the Trabant was better (even if it did have door handles on the inside, and come with a heater as standard...) As to where they are now? They're both out of production, and they were both in production for a couple of decades too much. It truthfully wouldn't bother me though if they were both still being produced.

The Mini was a breath of fresh air when it was launched. I remember it well. Ok the mini is cramped and noisy, but only by todays standards.

Ugly it most certainly is not. Post a poll, and see what the outcome is!

The Trabant was no where near as succsesful as the Mini. I know that they wre both out of production, but do you see a retro re-make of the trabant climbing up the sales charts?

The remake of the Mini is not a Mini at all - it's more like an overpriced Yugo (but lacking all the "charm" of the real Yugo).
The Mini wasn't ugly? It was snub nosed, had externally welded seams on the body, and tiny roller skate wheels. The Trabant was a different sort of ugly, with it's mini fins and clumsy toy-like appearance. I'll let decide which is more ugly, but they're both pretty ugly and that's all I'm saying.
As for success, of the Trabant, 3 million were made in 27 years, of the Mini 5 million were made in 42 years - the actual difference in cars made per year is not so great as you may have thought...
The Mini was a breath of fresh air when it was launched.
The Trabant 601 was thought to be a pretty clever design when introduced in 1964, and was thought of as a good alternative to cars such as the Fiat 500 and Citroen 2cv. It's design was in fact a triumph of engineering for East Germans, it had no valves, timing chains, oil pump, water pump, radiator - it came with a heater standard, and even had electronic ingnition, and a rust proof body.
This was all great back in 1964 - but the car rarely faced any major improvements over the years (even fewer than the Mini - in fact even fewer than the other East German car, the Wartburg) so while the Mini was certainly outdated by 1990, it was at least still somewhat competitive with other cars in it's class (although a large part of this came from customer loyalty) the Trabant on the other hand, was still basically the same car it was back in 1964 - save for some chasis and suspension improvements made in preparation for the Trabants that were getting VW polo engines in place of the familiar old two cylinder unit, and hundreds of detail improvements that didn't really make too much of a difference in the operation or performance of the car.

Look. I have no idea how old you are, But I remember the mini's launch very well. I was in my 20's and very interested in it. I'm just telling you how it is.

This is much cooler...

http://www.ak-miramare.hr/baca/vslike/zanim/limo.jpg

It's funny that even stretched out, it still can't manage to take up a full parking space...

Yugo=
:smokin:

P']Yugo=

Yugo=Awaste of good metal, and man hours

Yugo=Awaste of good metal, and man hours
Luckily the Yugo uses very few materials... if you want to see a real waste of good metal, look at the multitude of SUVs being produced today...

Dude, Yugos arent as bad as most people think. Back in Croatia, my Dad has a 198# Yugo sedan which still runs pretty good and it sounds nice(cuz the exhaust is full of rust holes :lol: )

It's still a piece of shit.

It's still a piece of shit.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v11/taranaki/boardies/donttalkshit.jpg

Dude, Yugos arent as bad as most people think. Back in Croatia, my Dad has a 198# Yugo sedan which still runs pretty good and it sounds nice
I had an '88 and it was fun, decently reliable (at least as reliable as my '82 Toyota was) car. Of course the build quality wasn't so great - but the car only cost $4000 when new, so I certainly won't complain about it.