A little background music please!
Easter of 2002 my wife Susan and I went to Rome for a week and while we were there we couldn't help but notice the brand new Mini Coopers scooting around the city with ease, parking with nary a problem, the drivers clearly having fun even though it was, well, Rome, a city not known for being a "fun" place to drive in.
Now we had recently moved out of the mountains of Chittenden, Vermont to the more flat terrain of Rutland, Vermont and had had our fill of gas-guzzling behemoths that seemed to serve little purpose but to get in the way. So we were looking for a small car with character, panache, quality workmanship, great features all at a great price -- but this being the United States such a thing seemed impossible to find. Until we saw the Minis in Italy.
Was it possible that these cool new cars might be available in the US? As soon as we got home we jumped online and sure enough BMW, the owner of the Mini line, was just ramping up several handful of serious facilities in the US to sell these babies. We found the nearest dealer, Keeler in Albany, place dour order and the rest was history.
Two years later we sold our Mini to downsize to just one car -- and since we lived in Vermont at the time we sought solace in the wisdom of an AWD Audi A4 wagon. Nice car to be sure, very nice. But someday we said, someday we will have a Mini once again.
Over the past couple of years my wife and I, in our more juvenile moments have in fact come up with appropriate names for the various combinations of Minis that we see all over Europe (where we've been living for nearly two years):
yellow/black roof -- bumblebee edition
black/white roof -- tuxedo edition
black/black roof -- "mezzanotte" (Italian for midnight) edition
cream/black roof -- "elegante" edition
red/white roof -- "nostra" (Itlaian for our) edition
red/red roof -- firetruck edition
Well you get the point.
And now things have come full circle.
Once the decision had been taken to return to the United States we knew we were going to need a car (I mean this country is BIG) and what better car to have than a Mini, right? And since our point of entry was going to be Boston we looked online for a dealer in the area and settled on Mini of Peabody. Just a month ago we placed a deposit down a new 2007 Mini Cooper (the new generation R56 series). Naturally it is red/white roof: "nostra edizione"!
Soon afterwards we got our production number and we've been tracking it faithfully ever since. It is presently en route to the United States in a little over two weeks we will be too. Our hope is that we will all arrive pretty much at the same time. Well actually we hope our little "piccola" (little one) gets there a few days ahead of us, she'll need a little time to get ready for the Big Day. You know how fussy European women can be.
Stay tuned and motor on!
Steve
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