Sniff Petrol is 10

From the archives – August 2004

by
Article image

GET SET FOR NEW MINI RETRO FEST

How the new Mini Clubman might look, yesterday

Hot on the kitten heels of the new Mini Cabriolet, BMW is poised to capitalise on the success of its cloyingly retro small car by launching a 21st century version of the never-popular Mini Clubman. Spies say engineers are already hard at work on re-designing the existing car’s body to provide the flat, boxy front end for which the Clubman was rightly unloved. “Our new version will share many of the best features of the original,” claimed a man inside BMW. “For example, improved space around the rather too tightly packaged engine, worse aerodynamics and… Hnnngg”.

However, sources within the Mini team say the unconvincing Clubman could be a mere entrée for another, more dramatic evolution – a modern Mini Metro. “Everyone knows the Mini eventually spawned the Metro so that’s what we’ll be doing,” said a man we spoke to. “Even though it’s pointless and silly.”

Engineering moles deep within some soil under the Mini development centre say that, such is BMW’s desire to accurately mimic the creation of the original Metro, it has organised a rota to decide which members of the project team are on strike at any one time and slashed the budget to a quarter of what it would normally be for a model such as this with a view to eventually asking for some more cash from Margaret Thatcher. Rumours are already rife that, just as the new Mini focussed on the sporty Cooper variants, so the new derivative will initially arrive only in racy MG Metro trim. However, some insiders say this plan may yet be de-railed: “We’ve hit a snag,” said one senior manager. “You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find red seatbelts these days”.

In the more immediate future, sources at BMW’s Cowley factory say that designers are preparing a unique special edition aimed at the car’s core market – vacuous blond girls who work in PR. “The Mini has been a huge success amongst the kind of bright eyed thicko women whose flirtatious phone manner belies their utter inability to do anything remotely constructive except drink endless cups of low fat aspirational coffee, go for long lunches and wear stupid pointy shoes,” said one Mini marketing source. “We’ve carefully designed this model so cater for their needs, which is why it will come with a pair of those stupid, slightly wrap around pink tinted sunglasses, some sort of flimsy cloth handbag that cost £250 and a big pile of Pret a Manger vouchers”. The special edition Mini Cooper Emma will be launched as soon as one of these women returns your phone call as promised. So basically never.