ALLGBMINI

Today when I visited MINI Peabody, Gary gave me a copy of Massachusetts Auto Dealer April 2004 (“the official publication of the Massachusetts State Automobile Dealers Association”).
The issue carries the story “Top-Notch Techs Take On MINIs in Peabody”; it discusses Gary’s hiring of two techs from the CART Circuit – Jonny Reed (who has since returned to CART) and Bryan Winn (who did my John Cooper Works upgrade). Bryan is quoted as saying I do miss the excitement of the pit crew sometimes, but I love what I’m doing now; Gary says We have a great team and it’s a good environment to work in.

Various web sites have covered the “Robot built from a MINI” story over the last few months, for example MotoringFile had Whats the deal with Men Of Metal?, MINI2 has this MINI based Robot thread and NorthAmericanMotoring has this thread which links to a SlashDot article which might be the origin of the story.

It has been generally established that this story and the original web site are an impressive hoax created by MINI advertising. A booklet “Men Of Metal” supposedly previewing a forthcoming book appeared in various magazines but now we have “proof” of the origin – the booklet has appeared on display at MINI Peabody!
I must say that the booklet is well written and left me wanting to read more … if you have not seen it, I have scanned the start of the story:

If you want to read more, check out your local MINI dealership – or you can download a PDF version here.

UPDATE: See also this story on Gabe Bridgers MotoringFile, which links to background articles from the New York Times and 2 Walls Webzine. Finally see this web page supposedly by the Author of “Men Of Metal”, Rowland Samuel.

At work today, we had three “mini” cars …

So long as you don’t like SUVs, one of these should suit you 😉