IKEA & BBQ with MAMA

After cleaning GBMINI I headed south to meet up to 20 other MINIs at the services on I95/128 just south of I90:

From there we took a very circuitous route first south, then north, then south again, back past where we began, before finally heading properly south towards IKEA!

We did successfully arrive at IKEA and after admiring their IKEA zipcar MINI we headed into the store to do some shopping!

After IKEA we headed to Smokey Bones restaurant for lunch, where they coped admirably with being invaded by 20-30 MINI folk!

We ended the day with some of us heading back north through Boston and the Big Dig tunnels, sadly too busy with traffic to be as much fun as the run back in 2004

It was a great day to see MINI folks, chat, shop, eat, drive and just have fun! Thanks to everyone that came 🙂

The real “Men Of Metal”?

See this entry on Gizmodo:
T52enryu.jpg
“Hyper rescue robot “T-52 Enryu” (rescue dragon) from Tmsuk first appeared in March 2004 but now he’s wandering the highways and byways saving stranded motorists”

Sadly if you check back through the old Men Of Metal links, you find that the original website no longer exists, perhaps due to MINI USA changing advertising companies recently.
However the Wayback Machine still knows all 🙂

Dealership re-assurance

MINI of Peabody is keen to re-assure both me and the MINI community that our favourite dealership will stay just that – excellent in all MINI respects!

Early today Gary King, MoP Service Manager, called me to chat and confirm that there are no changes to the service department and everyone is keen to maintain their customer relationship.
Then I “chatted” with Joel, my MA – he also posted a comment to re-assure everyone.

Finally when I got home, I had a message from Warren Waugh, one of the owners of the Lyon Waugh Auto Group that owns MINI of Peabody as well as the related BMW dealership and various others.
He & I chatted at length and he again emphasised that everyone knows how great the MINI community is, and how good their relationship with it is, and they don’t want to change it – except perhaps for the better!
Warren confirms that we can look forward to more MoP organized events like last years excellent Get Into It, the Classic Minis gathering, the Open Rally and the much earlier 2003 rally.

It’s always sad when this sort of thing happens but I can’t see any other dealership being concerned enough about their image in the community to call various owners and personally re-assure them. My thanks to Gary, Joel and Warren.