Page 9 - Club Braman Magazine Fall / Winter 2018

A PAIR OF MINI ENTHUSIASTS
HAVE A MAXI ADVENTURE
The Surprise of a Lifetime as they see their MINI come to Life during Factory Tour in England
By Peter Frey
Owning a MINI is rst and foremost about making every single drive, even if it’s just to the supermarket, an exciting experi- ence. The go-kart handling, the instant response that makes the car feel like an extension of your arms and legs, the joy of carving through a curving freeway on- ramp and blasting up through the gears – these are the things that make driving a MINI special.
Reason enough to make a MINI your daily driver, but there’s more to it than that. A global culture of enthusiasts has grown up around MINI since it was rst introduced in 1959, and when you buy a MINI, you open yourself up to all kinds of interesting adventures.
Take, for instance, Jayne and Paul Guy. Brits both, they grew up driving the orig- inal MINI. Now adults living on the Trea- sure Coast, they’ve moved on to driving the modern version and are now on their 5th BMW generation MINI – a new one every three years – and all of them from Braman MINI West Palm Beach.
Paul gets his kicks racing his Triumph Daytona 675R Sports Bike at Palm Beach International Raceway, but Jayne is the driver – both literally and guratively – of the couple’s newest pocket rocket.
“We bought the rst three o the lot and loved them all,” says Jayne. “The next
two, both John Cooper Works models, we ordered from the factory. So I got to really go through the options list and spec the car in a way that expressed my personality and made it uniquely my own.”
And it was with this latest custom order that the most recent adventure started. While on a trip to the UK this September, Jayne and Paul decided to visit the MINI factory and take a tour. They let their Bra- man MINI Motoring Advisor, Gary Rocko , know of their plans, he quietly passed the information along to Mini USA Corporate, who contacted the factory and Stuart Miles, a MINI executive who works at the MINI factory in Oxford, England took the lead.
“We were surprised when Stuart pulled
us out of the tour and walked us back up the assembly line,” says Jane. “But then we found out why when he pointed out our new car moving down the line. It was already painted, but we got to watch the doors and wheels being put on, saw it touch the ground for the rst time, saw the umbilicals come down and ll it up with all the uids... we actually got to watch it come to life. I never in my wildest dreams imagined anything like this and I still get emotional thinking about it.”
And the nal surprise came when Stuart asked Jayne if she would like to sit in the car as it was started up for the rst time and driven o the assembly line.
“Stuart said that this was only the third time in his thirty years at the factory that an owner has ever got to sit in their new car as it was being driven o the line,” says Paul. “The tour was fascinating and very informative, like the fact that it takes 36 hours from start to nish to build a new MINI. And it’s impressive to see the coor- dination of watching all the parts for each individual car arrive at the assembly line at exactly the right time.”
And that coordination resulted in the striking John Cooper Works MINI that Jayne delights in driving every day -- and is uniquely hers, right down to the British Flag taillight lenses. The LV MY JCW license plate pretty well sums up how she feels about her new MINI.
If you already got your MINI from Braman and are interested in taking a factory tour, check out www.visit-mini.com. If you ha- ven’t been behind the wheel of a MINI yet, stop by Braman MINI West Palm Beach at 2901 Okeechobee Blvd. and they'll intro- duce you to a car that makes every drive an adventure.
9