ALLGBMINI – Page 395 – M&I / GBMINI

See the duck on Long Island

Posted on September 25, 2005February 10, 2017 by Ian C.

In honour of Ed, I headed down to Long Island this weekend to join some Long Island MINI owners and tour Long Island; I met Chris at the New London ferry (he had driven down from New Hampshire), and we crossed to Long Island the easy way …

Minolta DSC

Then early yesterday morning I met up to 20 other MINIs at a mall near New York City, where the rally started (and ended!):

Minolta DSC

We headed off to drive a total of about 180 miles! For me there was too much driving and not enough stopping – we passed lots of beautiful scenery and towns, but stopped only rarely …

Minolta DSC

But one important place we did stop was the Big Duck!

The Big Duck

GBMINI#3 at The Big Duck

Minolta DSC

The Big Duck

Group picture at The Big Duck

Lunch was at a golf “country club” which had trouble coping with an “invasion” of 30+ MINI people – food was excellent but slow. On the other hand, the weather was fabulous!

Minolta DSC

Background – why the Big Duck:
Ed (MaxaMINI) developed his duck theme from a tour round Long Island organized by RobFriedman; see see this post on MINI2, where Ed writes:
Sorry ladies and gents it be no Giant Duck. Cheez it’s plain to see they are merely mini people. Come on get real. Giant duck! Have you ever in your life seen a duck this big? Of course not. That’s quite impossible and you know it. Look how small those cars are. Could real size people operate them? Of course not. Mini people and Mini cars. Get it.

Space Blue, Silver Roof

Posted on September 21, 2005February 12, 2017 by Ian C.

I saw my first ’06 MINI today at MINI Peabody; a Space Blue MCS with silver roof – the silver is very un-reflective – see the mirror caps:

Minolta DSC

As always, the color is difficult to capture in a picture; I took some pics from different angles, as well as comparison pics with known colors (British Racing Green, Chili Red); and this close-up of the hood shows the variation in color with different lighting:

Minolta DSC

Overall, reminiscent of Purple Haze but less red … Chris at MINI Peabody said “less girly”!

Jasons Drive 2005

Posted on September 18, 2005February 19, 2017 by Ian C.

A “tradition” at the end of British Invasion (see also 2003 and 2004) is to follow Jason around as he leads a groups of MINIs around the back roads of Vermont – he lives locally and knows the roads well!
This year only three MINIs joined in, perhaps due to the damp weather – but we still had fun and got in a couple of photo ops; the weather made the winding downhill section particularly challenging – I was very glad to follow Jason, knowing that he knew the road well …

Minolta DSC