John Francis wrote:
On Thu, Mar 04, 2010 at 05:46:24PM +0000, Drew wrote:
John Francis wrote:
On Wed, Mar 03, 2010 at 08:38:48PM +0000, Drew wrote:
John Francis wrote:
On Wed, Mar 03, 2010 at 07:29:45PM +0000, Drew wrote:
David Savage wrote:
G'day All,
Last one from my Fremantle night time excursion:
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/disavage/4394082044/>
Direct link (~170kb)
<http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4056/4394082044_f8db7b0e6d_o.jpg>
D700, AF-D 50mm f1.4, 1/6 @ f5, ISO 1600.
Enjoy.
Cheers,
Dave
Great shot... love it! I was a bit worried that it might have
been a BMW 0.5 series.
Which is a far better car ...
On a technical level yes, I could never deny that engineering has not
improved in the intervening 40+ years... but it's just another
hot-hatch, not dissimilar to the offerings from Toyota, Citroen, Fiat
etc etc... this one happens to be styled to take advantage of
peoples love for the Mini, just like the Fiat 500 and new Beetle do
for their respective followers.
The Clubman is probably the poorest choice of a new mini if you just
want to rag on it - it's actually a pretty neat little box, and has
several good design points (not the least of which being the choice
of side-hingeing rear doors; it's *not* "just another hot hatch" :-).
I wouldn't rag on the car, I'm sure it is a fine automobile... Just
though I'd mention one point though, the original Mini Estate and
Traveler (Clubman was originally a designation of the front end
styling, not the shape at the back) had those doors back in the 60's
http://www.motorbase.com/uploads/2006/08/31/fs_austin_mini_estate_1966_rear.jpg
That would be "Traveller" (for the Morris badge), or "Countryman"
(for the Austin 7), IIRC. you don't need to tell me about those
old models - I drove them when they were new. I don't believe I
ever got behind the wheel of a Riley Elf (or the Wolseley Hornet).
Back in the day just about every Estate had double rear doors
such as those on my Morris Minor Traveller, or a Morris Oxford;
hatchbacks came along later. Every now and then somebody decides
there's something to be said in their favour (especially without
a lip at the rear of the load platform, which is a problem with a
lot of the ubiquitous hatchbacks, including the regular MINI).
But how much of the choice of rear doors for the new MINI clubman
was for practical reasons, and how much for a nostalgia trip, is
hard to say. No original mini had suicide doors (or asymmetric
passenger door layouts), so some of the design is function-driven.
Still, at least they didn't half-timber the new car :-)
P.S. There was a hatchback door version of the old Mini Estate.
I love the van style doors, but I'm not convinced by asymmetric doors,
especially as they didn't swap the sides for the UK market leaving the
'passenger' door on the wrong side... but I suppose they did it for cost...
When I was secretary of our local Mini club BMW sent me some press
release photos one of them showed a prototype 'woody' MINI... it had
that kind of horrid plastic wood stuff they used on the old Clubman
Estate...I am SO glad they thought better of that one.
I wonder if they will do a Riley version, BMW let almost all of the old
names go to Rover and BMH except Mini and Riley.
BTW... the 'Hatch back' versions were conversions by after-market
specialists like Radford etc...
Drew.
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