Josh Wardell’s MINI Cooper S

This weekend was busy with two MINI runs, and a lot of tiresome rainy driving! It has been raining to various degrees in Boston for the past five days or so, preventing me from having the sparkling clean car I was looking forward to displaying for the two runs (and many were sure to make fun of this fact). On Saturday we headed to Cape Cod. I had missed the last Cape run from years ago, so I was looking forward to this despite the weather.

We started in Dennis and met Lucky, the duck-covered minivan that will soon be driving with four old stinky MINI drivers all the way to New Orleans. It was also my first opportunity to see the new 2007 R56 MINI up close as I could not attend the dealership intro events. Two owners already had one, plus Hrach drove a $35-grand Cooper from MINI of Peabody. I have plenty of mixed reactions; it is easy to find the areas where costs were cut including the feel of many switches, but that orange leather sure is amazing.

The route had great views of the Cape and included Dennis Beach, Chatham, Orleans, Wellfleet, some great curves on Old Country Rd in S. Truro, and ended in Provincetown, where we then parked and walked around for an hour. We brought our dog along for the walk as it seems there are more dogs than humans in PTown. Then we headed back to Dennis for an excellent cookout, and a lot of MINIs crammed in a small cul-de-sac, as well as the Vegginator. I’ve posted my few photos from Saturday in the gallery.

On Sunday, MINI of Peabody held its annual spring poker run. Starting with over 50 MINIs in the dealership, we drove to points around the North Shore to collect playing cards, and the best resulting hands won prizes at the end of the day. Of course many drivers had trouble following directions and there were several points were MINIs could be seen coming and going in all directions at an intersection! No news of anyone getting lost (Harvey and Terry were not there) this time. An excellent catered lunch followed and some giveaways along with plenty of time to talk and mingle, and I was able to examine even more points of the R56 in the showroom. It absolutely poured on the way home and made the trip three times as long for me thanks to the slowing traffic on the highways. I took a good long nap when I got home as I was exhausted after two days of motoring in the rain!

My checkerboard sunroof is no more. I took advantage of this week’s heat wave to help remove the vinyl. It was becoming increasingly tattered (see below) in the past year, and no longer looked that good. The chex were one of my first mods, actually purchased just before I got my MINI, now almost three years ago. It was from CooperFlags, which has since changed ownership and perhaps materials as well.

I really liked the perforated sunroof vinyl, it did a good job of filtering sunlight and heat but still allowed you to see through from the inside. The heat is a bit less of an issue now as my MINI sits in the garage at home, and usually in a parking garage at work as well. I do have another design in mind, we’ll see if I can afford to do it again in the future. But I will definitely miss it as the chex were the single most identifying feature of my MINI.