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ThunderBeast – The Drive

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ThunderBeast is our first generation MINI GP. He has just returned from the garage where he has had a full service, two new front bushes, two new front shocks, a couple of oil leaks fixed and a perishing petrol cap replaced. It was good having him back. This is a car that makes you want to write about something as simple as just driving him…

I clocked out of work early, I had suffered enough pain from the cancer in my back. I wanted to rest. First though I was relishing the drive home in ThunderBeast – Our MINI GP1. As I crossed the work car park I clicked the remote and heard a faint click as the remote control opened. My heart matched the click. My mind had been conjuring with a catch phrase for the car. Mini has the “blow the bloody doors off” and Glennister has made “Fire up the Quattro” a modern classic.

I slid into the full leather Recaro seat. “Gun up the GP Ade” I said to myself, at the same time putting the heated seat on to comfort my aching back. The revs as it started hinted at the symphony the car promised to play to me. I reversed out of my parking space slow, real slow, prolonging the moment. Work colleagues were watching me. I was real slow, they were probably wondering where my Trilby was. I crawled past them giving a quick wave.

The road outside the factory was a thirty. Full of pot holes and abandoned cars and lorries on the pavements and road. Schoolkids were passing along. I took it slow to the lights at the top of the road. I was at the front at the lights. I gunned the throttle as I took a right and hit 40 in seconds.The supercharger whined. The Limited slip did its work on the bend. How do I explain the pleasure that move just gave me.

I slowed up to the roundabout then shot through it, stopping on a red light on the roundabout stopping me entering onto the motorway. A green light and I whizzed up to 70 as I went down the slip way, easing off as I did so.The supercharger whined, the exhaust popped as I let off. The car was playing its favourite tune.Driving this is not about speeding, I know how fast it will go, it’s having fun but legal fun.

I cruised along the motorway for one stop.I looked around the cockpit of the GP. Near vertical A-panels gave it a tank like feel. Things looked huge in the rear view mirror and the side mirrors. The gray instruments looked special. The loops of silver gray in the door panels gave it a rally car feel. It feels like a very special place.

Off the motorway now and exiting Upton’s 30 limit onto a 60. Two cars ahead were dawdling along. I lined them up and floored the GP. “Waaaaaaaaaarrrrrp!” went the supercharger as we flew past them. At 60 they were out of sight behind and I reined him in. Again the exhaust popped. My heart was a part of the car. It popped too as it recovered from the “warp” that shot through my chest.

I got home. Peanut was waiting for me on our steps. She hugged me and kissed me. Was she kissing Beastmaster or Steve McQueen? How should I know, I mean inside I felt like Steve McQueen.


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SilverBeast Gets GP Under Tray Fitted

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A long while back we installed the GP rear diffuser on SilverBeast. This improves the aerodynamics under the car and gives a more appealing look to the rear of the car either side of the exhaust.

It is because of this visual improvement, giving the car a beefier, sportier and more purposeful look, that this modification has been so popular.

However, without the engine under tray from the GP2  also being fitted then this modification in truth is purely aesthetic and gives no aerodynamic benefit at all. However, match it to the engine undertray and you have the same aerodynamic set up under the car as the GP 2 and this does make a difference.

Above is what SiverBeast looked like before the engine under tray was added and below is how it looks with it installed.

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Yep no difference can be seen at all unless you crawl under the engine bay. This is why there has been a much lower take up on having the under tray fitted, compared to take up of the rear diffuser as a modification.

In terms of aerodynamic handling I doubt I drive the car hard enough to notice much difference. That is the honest answer but having spotted other signifcant differences, I don’t doubt that is does work in making improvements in the handling.

Two things we have noticed. First, the noise. This car not quiet and a lot of the noise comes from road noise under the car. The car is a lot noisier than an R56. You had to either talk or listen to the radio but not both. Now, with the undertray fitted, you can have the radio on and still be able to talk. Now we can hear the engine more which is a much better noise than the road noise that dominated before. Also we can pick up the windscreen windnoise which again was drowned out by the road noise from below. For these benefits alone we feel the under tray has been a worthwhile benefit.

Secondly, we have a better fuel consumption. We are now getting an extra 2 to 3 miles per gallon on what we got before. I kid you not here.

So there you have it the GP2 under tray. It works!


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Car Events 2015 – St Fagans Welsh Museum

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A young MINI enthusiast – Aaron – organised a MINI meet at St Fagans National History Museum, commonly referred to as St Fagans after the village where it is located. It is an open-air museum in Cardiff chronicling the historical lifestyle, culture, and architecture of the Welsh people. The museum is part of the wider network of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales. The day out was organised via The Welsh MINI Group, an online Facebook group of MINI enthusiasts and it took place on Sunday the 11th October.

We left Malvern at 8.30 am in order to be at Cardiff West Services at Junction 33 of the M4 for 10.00am, where we were meeting the rest of the gang. We took two cars, Our MINI GP – ThunderBeast – and our JCW Coupe – SilverBeast – and had some fun on the drive down to Cardiff! From the services we all convoyed the short drive to the Museum. However, first there was the ritual of standing around in a carpark for an hour while we all admired the MINIs. Once at St Fagans we parked in a grassy overspill car park where we were all able to park together and get some good photos of all the MINIs. Inevitably then another hour was spent hanging around the MINIs as we repeated the exercise of admiring the cars and making new MINI friends. All good fun and an essential part of a MINI meet. Aaron just loves MINIs and I confess his enthusiasm certainly rubs off on me.

We then wandered around the open air museum where you can glimpse Welsh life through the ages. It makes for an interesting day out and below I have posted a few pictures from around the Museum. I shared a chicken and leek baked potato with Peanut for lunch and then ambled around some more after lunch with our old pals Debbie and Aston and Aston’s son Jenson. Great company and we always enjoy catching up with them.

Two thirty saw us back in the car park while a raffle was drawn for some MINI goods and then a few of us went to the OysterCatcher in Penarth for tea. Unfortunately they could not accommodate us so after some thought me and Peanut decided it was home time, said our goodbyes and drove the hour and a half back to Malvern. This time I was in SilverBeast and Chrissie was chasing in ThunderBeast, as with the morning drive down to Cardiff, this was a lot of fun! The conclusions from us both were unanimous. SilverBeast is faster, ThunderBeast handles better. SilverBeast is more refined, ThunderBeast is more fun.

All in all it was a lovely day out and it was exciting taking ThunderBeast on his first MINI meet. It was fun seeing all the other MINIs too, 2, GP1s, 2 GP2s about 5 F56s, 3 Roadsters and two Coupes plus many more MINIs.It was also good to meet old friends again as well as make a few new ones!


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ThunderBeast Gets His Decals

  
A massive thank you to Pete Morgan from the GP UK Owners forum for going the extra mile to make the decals for our Gen 1 GP.

  
Before you ask BP stands for our names in the MINI community, Beastmaster and Peanut. 500 is because all our cars have 500 in their number plate. 5 is because we have 5 cars in the “500 Club” although one we have given to The Elf – Peanut’s daughter.

  
  
Finally we have MINI cooper laurels because all our MINIs wear these on their A – Panel.

Next stop is the “500”number plate!


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Car Events 2015 – The Goodwood Revival

37 Photographs To Make You Want To Go To The Goodwood Revival

Since Douglas Adam’s revealed the answer to be “42” in his book The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, scholar’s by and large have accepted this as the definitive answer.  After all it took a computer (Deep Thought) the size of a planet 7.5 million years of calculation to arrive at this answer. So long did it take that the question posed was actually forgotten. Some believe that the question was what is 6 x 9 (base 13) but in the absence of hard evidence to support this beyond doubt, we have adopted ” Life, The Universe and Everything” as the question.

A time warp malfunction resulted in a breakaway group of scholar’s contemplating the same question back in the early 1960s, before Earth even new that the question had been running for nigh on 7.5 million years. This group had two unique qualities that each member possessed. Firstly, they were all super intelligent human beings and secondly, each one owned a Mini. They had amazing success and in an incredible year of sterling endeavour from the middle of 1963, to the middle of 1964 they arrived at the answer “37”. As if endorsement was needed, Paddy Hopkirk won the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally in a Mini – number 37!

In 1978, Douglas Adam’s revealed the answer to be “42” in a series of Radio Four Comedy programmes – The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. The world and its scholars ran with this theory.

However, the Mini community remains loyal to the original gang of super intelligent boffins and have made the number “37” iconic in their community. The Mini community is now a global network of enthusiasts holding regular meets where without fail the number “37” can always be seen as the knowledge is passed from generation to generation.

In homage to the superintelligents of the Mini community and the hard work they do in the name of 37, I give you 37 photographs to show you why you need to go the the Goodwood Revival.

Tuscan Roadtrip – 20 Photographs To Make You Want To Drive Around Tuscay

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As the title says…

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The car we used for this road trip around Tuscany was our MINI JCW Coupé. He performed in sterling fashion and the Italians loved him. The owner of the castle where we stayed loved him and when we pulled up in roadside lay-bys for a drink at a roadside café they would admire him too. It added to the fun.

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This gallery contains 22 photos


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MINI GP – Two Weeks On

  
We have had the GP for a few weeks now and I wanted to put down a few thoughts on the car. Part of my first assessment, I have reproduced below.

“The Coupe is a lot more economical. In truth I feel it is a smidge faster but in handling I think I prefer the GP. It is the mechanical limited slip differential that gets you round a corner so beautifully that just edges the handling in the GP’s favour. The Coupe is a grown up hooligan. The GP is an adolescent hooligan. The Coupe has all the toys for grand touring particularly sat nav. The GP though also has the heated seats and in the case of this one a very nice sounding Kenwood stereo matched to big boot floor mounted speakers. It sounds great, better than the Harmon Kardon on the Coupe but is fiddly to use and lacks the DAB of the Coupe which is so vital for the football.
The GP has a supercharger, the Coupe has a Turbo. One is grown up, one isn’t. One is a veritable musical instrument, one isn’t. Both are immense fun but the Supercharger is in truth the more addictive drug. You can poodle about in the Coupe. The GP whispers in your ear telling you to go faster.”

Nothing has changed on that initial assessment. But there are a few things I can add. I have described the Coupe as a GP – esque GT and I think that is right. It has the fun factor, but is a bit more comfortable. It isn’t forever urging you to drive like a demon. You can if you want but you don’t have to. With the GP it is always urging you to go faster. Great fun but taxing if you are not in that kind of a mood.
Two weeks on and we are getting the hang of using the Kenwood HiFi. The sound is superb but the radio reception is awful. We suspect the stubby aerial is the problem but trying to remove it is proving hard. We got the aerial off but it left the screw in adapter in the base plate. This just turns and turns but does not come out and in the process we have put a small crack in the plastic antenna base, Water might get in so I think we now have the bigger job of replacing the base plate.
The next thing to break is the driver’s seat. I suspect that only one driver has driven it for the last few years so this has had little use. Now with two drivers we are constantly adjusting the seat height and it has decided to jam. Our plan is to get an old seat remove the mechanism and replace. By removing the mechanism on the old seat first we will have mastered the process before we touch the GP seat. For now, though I am sat a smidge too high and Peanut is a smidge too low.
No other breakages and tinkering is left. We will put the BP500-5 number on him but small so as not to fight with the original GP 0545 roof number. I think we will locate these either side of the rear spoiler. We will also add his name – ThunderBeast – as a decal probably on the bottom of each door and we will give him a 500 number plate. 

Peanut meanwhile has made a few observations of her own. First, we used to have a generation 1 MINI Checkmate works and fast driving meant adopting the brace position as a passenger where the 45 degree hand grab in the door panel was of great use. In the GP she very quickly remembered this position! Meanwhile we will carry on enjoying him. Secondly, she enjoyed rediscovering the noise of the Supercharger and how a flap opens at 4000 revs to let more noise into the cabin. Glorious!


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MINI GP First Generation – ThunderBeast Latest Addition to Our Fold.

  
We have been a part of the MINI community for about 13 years now and most of those who know us, will know that We have always wanted a first generation MINI GP. We have had a fair few MINIs in this time but this one we missed out on having ordered a Checkmate just before this came out.

Every time we have been to a static New MINI show we have drooled over the GPs. Many of our friends have had them, Aston, Chris and Jax and Scream who still drives his today. Chris and Jax gave us an extended test run of theirs allowing us to drive it from Malvern to Cardiff on the back roads through Wales and we were suitably impressed.

Finally, ten years after the GP was launched we were in a position to add one to our small collection. Recently we were holidaying in Italy and by a wonderful coincidence bumped into Scream and his wife Becky and daughter Minnie in the Piazza del Campo in Siena. We lunched, chatted and caught up on the gossip and I mentioned that we were looking for a GP. A few days later Scream messaged me telling me if a friend who had one. We arranged to see it and on Sunday we collected our very own GP. It has been part of the MINI community for many years so many will know the car.

It had a long first drive from Yorkshire to Malvern and it gave us a chance to see what we had. We have a MINI Coupe JCW and inevitably it is that that we draw a comparison too. I have recently blogged that the Coupe is a GP-esque GT. A grand tourer with the sporty overtones of this GP.  Now having both I think that is definitely correct. 

The Coupe is a lot more economical. In truth I feel it is a smidge faster but in handling I think I prefer the GP. It is the mechanical limited slip differential that gets you round a corner so beautifully that just edges the handling in the GP’s favour. The Coupe is a grown up hooligan. The GP is an adolescent hooligan. The Coupe has all the toys for grand touring particularly sat nav. The GP though also has the heated seats and in the case of this one a very nice sounding Kenwood stereo matched to big boot floor mounted speakers. It sounds great, better than the Harmon Kardon on the Coupe but is fiddly to use and lacks the DAB of the Coupe which is so vital for the football.

The GP has a supercharger, the Coupe has a Turbo. One is grown up, one isn’t. One is a veritable musical instrument, one isn’t. Both are immense fun but the Supercharger is in truth the more addictive drug. You can poodle about in the Coupe. The GP whispers in your ear telling you to go faster. 

These are now my children so don’t expect me to pick a favourite they all have their strengths and weaknesses. We have a Paceman SD and an Opel GT and the Elf has CooperBeast a first Generation Cooper. The Paceman is the most comfortable and grown up car of the lot. The Opel, the fastest in a straight line, a fantastic posers car (I do like that) and of course it’s a convertible so has the most headroom. The Cooper is the best in terms of matching the car’s handling to the driver. Of all of them this is the one you can drive flat out for most of the time.

To conclude then, the GP is raw, the Coupe more grown up, both are hooligans, the GP an adolescent hooligan, the Coupe a grown up hooligan. We are lucky people, we have cars that suit all jobs except one. None of them are on the company car tick list for the Middle Class, Middle Manager for his work commute and I think that is just how I like it!