Mini threw itself a massive 50th birthday party at Silverstone and MARK NICHOLgot an invite
THE BROWN MINI Clubman had been there all day – notable only by its ordinariness, honestly – but the frenzied gaggle now surrounding it suggested something out of the ordinary is going on.
“One more!” is the cry. That should take them up to 22. A little girl steps forward. She looks terrified, probably because she knows that she’s about to become the last human Tetris block in a worryingly packed vessel. She’s picked up and squeezed through a side door, causing the melded humans inside to begin spilling from the open back doors. A man pushes against the bodies with all the strength he can muster. It’s one of those “inhale sharply through gritted teeth” moments of discomfort, but the crowd loves it. Okay, that should be 22; let’s free them.
“17 . . . 18 . . . 19 . . . 20”, erm, what happened to 21 and 22? Ah well – at least nobody died. The crowd disperse, amusement triumphing over disappointment, and head for their tents to drop off armfuls of overpriced branded merchandise before heading back for the main event: Paul Weller.
You’ve got to hand it to BMW; this is some party. We haven’t got the official numbers yet, but by Saturday afternoon it was becoming clear that around 20,000 people had rocked up to Mini United at Silverstone race circuit in Northamptonshire, most of them with either an old British Mini or a BMW-era model. The previous day, a significantly smaller number had spent £100,000 on T-shirts and things; there’s a group of men in a Bavarian boardroom sitting on Union-Jack-upholstered chairs feeling very pleased with themselves right now, no doubt.
And so they should because – regardless of arguments about whether the brand’s incumbent keeper has bastardised Alec Issigonis’s 1959 icon – one thing is certain: new Mini is a juggernaut. Over 1.4 million have been sold since BMW retained the brand rights in the wake of the Rover fiasco and completely redefined the car in 2001. And to prove the point, even in America – where owning a small car is a tacit admission of inadequacy – interest in the Mini is approaching Susan Boyle levels, with a near one-third sales increase last year. And this when car sales are, as we all well know, dropping off a cliff.
So, BMW has arguably earned the right to celebrate not only the landmark half century of the seminal original’s creation, but also the part it has played in redefining it and carrying the torch. And here at Mini United, it’s hard not to be touched by the enthusiasm of every last one of the revellers who’ve descended on Silverstone. However, where that enthusiasm lies is not always harmonious.
See, talk to people here and it’s clear, anecdotally at least, there’s schism; there’s a generation gap. Ask a classic Mini owner about the BMW product and the amount of times the phrase, “it’s nice , but it’s not a Mini” comes back is telling. Plenty have embraced both, for sure, but the split is there.
Happily, that doesn’t seem to have stopped everyone coming together and celebrating the love of whatever era they love. Acres of tarmac space is dedicated to simply allowing owners to park up and show off their metal. It’s almost surreal, actually, to be standing alongside a pristine 1969 Riley Elf (a “luxury” Mini-based saloon), then to turn and see €60,000 worth of 240bhp, Lamborghini-doored new Mini parked only yards away, stereo blaring.
The latters owner, 29-year-old Stathis Stathakis, has come all the way from Greece to show off the unholy creation of his company, Design Perfection. He travelled for four days, but in broken English he talks animatedly about his next project: a 500bhp Cooper S with a custom four-wheel drive setup. The irony is, the humble Riley’s owner – 69-year-old retiree Kurt Jorgensen – bought his car because of its purity of handling, and would probably blitz young Stathis, should the two meet on the adjacent Silverstone track. He knows about these things, see, because he used to rally in Sweden in a two-stroke Saab; he’s all go and no show.
Further along this row of organised dissonance is 17-year-old Hannah Walter from Reading. She’s brought her limited edition 1989 Mini Rose along. Only 500 were made, each brushed in white with a pink roof and door cards. She got it when she was 15 because she “fell in love with her”, so her dad bought “her” and fixed her up a little before Hannah passed her test.
And, to prove the earlier point about schism, Hannah states categorically that “the new Minis aren’t Minis – they’re BMWs”, and that she’d “never get one” because “I’d feel like I was betraying my car.” Strong words, particularly from one so squarely in new Mini’s target market – the aspirational hip young driver.
So is the new Mini really the icon BMW hopes it is, or, in reality, is it actually the iconoclast here? To be honest, we might have to wait another 50 years to find that out for sure, but there is plenty to suggest BMW has a bona fide classic on its hands. Enter Floriano Colasante and his girlfriend Silke Preis, two young Germans with money in their pockets, time to spare and an insatiable appetite for Mini.
Colasante, a mobile phone salesman, chose MINI “over Porsche or Mercedes” (which granted, could merely be some fanciful brand-name dropping) because “Mini is a way of life, not just a car”.
And for him, it’s a way of life that takes up days of his time every week, going to club meetings and such, as well as thousands of euro in tuning and visual accessories. He and his girlfriend met each other through the Mini club he runs, Team Freak; they’re Mini united, you could say.
The bulk of people have come from the UK, in Minis of course, just for a wander and to pick up anything from a few little styling tips to a new car. If it’s Mini-related, you can bet your aluminium hubcaps it’s on sale here; everything from a Mini beach towel, through to a “Mini owners do it little and often” bumper sticker and an entire exhaust system or a set of leather chairs.
There is, in honesty, the whiff of sinister corporate marketing among the stench of overpriced beer and cheeseburgers, but the overriding vibe at Mini United is that of a massive celebration. Stuff like free go-karting, driving tuition, Mini Championship racing to watch, a chance to take your own Mini around the Silverstone circuit and loads of activities for kids all contribute to the feeling that, ultimately, MINI (or BMW) is simply the thread holding together one big excuse to party.
Strangely, the apogee of the show, Weller (who’s straddled by two well-lit new Minis at either side of the stage), proves something of an anti-climax. The masses revel in the catalogue of hits he churns out, for sure, but when he finally mentions his paymasters with a quick “happy birthday Mini” near the end of his set, it seems almost like an afterthought.
The real tribute to the classless, ageless, timeless little car first scribbled on the back of an envelope by a man called Alec is what went on earlier: thousands of owners vying for a bit of limelight with the cars they’ve spent so much time and money making their own, and thousands more there to give them just that limelight.