Channel Nine’s ‘Young Lions’ star detective Alexandra Davies, partnered by would-be investigators Damon Garret and Natalie Perrin narrowly missed out on scooping the inaugural MISSION MINI adventure - a fiction-meets-fact international challenge to recover six ’stolen’ pieces of artwork. The innovative global MINI marketing promotion was based on a whodunit thriller written by well-known author Val McDermid.

The announcement of the MISSION prompted applications from 24,000 would-be detectives. Only 81 entrants from 17 countries were chosen to fly to Barcelona to track down the lost art.
Each team was issued with a PDA satellite navigation-equipped MINI Cooper S with which to uncover a trail of clues within a tight timeframe.

Using their intuition and information passed on by characters from the thriller who came to life, including the elusive lead investigator, Sam Cooper, the teams raced each other to the ‘crime-scenes’ where further clues could be discovered.

‘Germany Team One’ solved the case, but only after the Australians had led the running for much of the three-day event.

Despite traveling for 35 hours to reach Barcelona, the Aussies were quickly on the pace, making friends among the diverse international teams as well as asking the hard questions of the MISSION ‘witnesses’ and ’suspects’.

The first task was a BMW advanced driving course, eye opening for 29-year-old Natalie, a Coles Myer PR executive who had never before driven a left-hand drive car. “It was a once in a lifetime experience. We were so close. Although we didn’t solve the crime first, we felt like winners at theend,” Natalie said.

“On day one we were bombarded with information. None of it was coming together,” said Damon, a 26-year-old brand manager. “Then on the second day it started to gel. We were the first to find the classified ad in the newspapers that led us to a car wash, and then to the Japanese restaurant. “But then we hit a snag, or rather a sushi deluxe which
we later found out was the key to the whole case,” said Damon. The art was finally located in a locker at the train station, the key hidden in the Japanese restaurant.

In summing up the event, our VIP Alexandra Davies said “All the teams have been fantastic. It’s been such an honour being over here in Spain. With everything going on in the world at the moment, here are 17 countries with so many different backgrounds and just one key objective; to have a whole lot of fun! Experiences like this come around only once, and it’s been incredible.”