| Ahh, the old threads...
If you're thinking of getting a car in the spring, you're not going to get an AWD MINI. Maybe such a thing will exist, but its not going to exist anytime in the near future. A RWD MINI is nearly pointless, as its not to spirit of a MINI, and BMW is going to sell the 1 series, so they want to keep MINI separate, but AWD would be cool, in however many years they get to think about actually selling it.
Having just sold my '87 RX-7 SE, there's no regrets to going to a FWD car. Maybe its just personal taste, but the small loss in ability due to the wrong wheels pushing is more then made up for by a car that's reliable, well put together, and just a whole lot more powerful then a normally aspirated 2nd gen RX-7. It also actually has torque, unlike the rx-8.
If you can keep all the cars, then go for it, but my rx-7 would have cost an extra $300/year to insure, and as I sold it for $800, and had to keep fixing small stuff, it wasn't exactly a good investment to keep.
And while I like rotary engines - you can't really say the rx-8 engine is ready for primetime, and there's hundreds of thousands of MINIs out there with pretty much rock solid reliability. I'd prefer that to what's still an experimental engine on the rx-8. It just doesn't have the reliability of an NA 13B, even if it has twice the hp and better emissions.
Magic 8-ball was correct. All be in awe of Magic 8 ball. | 
