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[Chief_Charlie]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jim Ray (original)

Question for you Charlie, will the GP be street legal in California? Is the law still that the lowest part of a car can not be lower than the rim of the wheel?

18" from 24" total diameter = 6". The outer lip of the rim is below the diameter of the tire. Hmm, you and Jimskater may have to run 15" wheels also.

That's an accurate paraphrase of 24008 CVC which says:
It is unlawful to operate any passenger vehicle, or
commercial vehicle under 6,000 pounds, which has been modified from
the original design so that any portion of the vehicle, other than
the wheels, has less clearance from the surface of a level roadway
than the clearance between the roadway and the lowermost portion of
any rim of any wheel in contact with the roadway.

According to the Specs for the Dunlop 205/40/18 DSST's at the Tire Rack site, the overall diameter is 24.4 inches, and that means there's 3.2 in of rubber tire between the bottom of the rim and the roadway surface. If Goonery measured the height for his car at 3 inches, then I can only conclude that:
1. It's gonna be close by 0.2 in; or
2. MINI has re-set the height of the USA cars to comply with standards over here...just like Porsche does for Euro cars vs USA NHTSA-approved ride heights. Isn't that one of the attributes of the JCW Springs...adj ride height.

Which may mean we'll all have to get out cars lowered and re-aligned once we receive them in August in order to match the handling of the UK/Euro cars.