The recent SEMA show held in Las Vegas was a complete system overload of cars, trucks and everything in between. While I was there to scope out any new MINI Cooper Developments I was inundated with slammed trucks, jacked up Hummers (one with 27"!!!! wheels!!), over-stereo'd imports and of course the thousands of wheels, tires, and everything else.
The highlight of the MINI world was by far was the Silver BMP Turbo Cooper S. They had two cars there, the Blue Cooper S at the Sachs booth with a Orciari body kit and the Silver one (Orciari kit as well) was at their booth. Among the developments were a new 19% reduction pulley that is swappable with the stock size and the 15% version. They have teamed up with HR to private label the HR swaybars in Blue with the ProMINI name on it. They've also private labeled the H-sport Control Arms, which should be available soon. At least one of the cars had a modified rear spoiler that is either new or I had forgotten that I'd seen before. Overall I was most impressed by what ProMINI had to offer. They have been quietly working on some stuff and have realized that re-inventing the wheel is the way to go in some ways (IE the B&M short shift, the H-sport Control Arms, and H&R sway bars). The market is just so saturated with stuff and honestly H-sport, B&M are doing a great job, why compete with them and the other stuff on the market. If you can't beat 'em join em.
Other cars there included the Yokohama black/white MINI, the Mothers Red Cooper S (w/blacked out light rings and grills), the Diamond Racing Yellow Cooper (looking kind of rough, sorry guys!), the Kumho Tires Red Cooper and the MINI-Madness Cooper S (which had a modified intercooler and the Orciari kit as well) at the StopTech booth. The craziest one was at the HP Racing booth. It was a blue Cooper with a Turbo, Lamborgini doors, front pivoting hood and some wild gauge locations in the dash along with cutom door panels. It seemed that there were 3-5 more that were used as doner vehicles to some rediculous stereo mess or lighting freak show. Over the top graphics were applied to the couple that I saw in the stereo arena.
Since most companies are spending money on development, it's fair to say that most are still working on stuff and it will at least 3-9 months before we see the wild stuff like the BMP Cooper S Turbo on the market. There were a couple prototype style Water to Air intercoolers (mainly BMP and Madness, I think?), still looking a bit crude, but should get refined over the next months. It seems that suspension stuff has been pretty well worked out, intakes are, for the most part, on the market, exhausts systems are almost prolific, pulleys are gettting smaller and interior product development is fairly dormant.
In the body kit world it was clear that Orciari had the only real offering, although there was one of the Zeemax kits on the Silver 'Grafik Dezine' Cooper S. It looked a bit extreme on the MINI. I hope someone comes out with a decent looking kit soon. The OE Aero kit, to me, is still the best looking one on the market. It doesn't swallow the MINI or compete with the styling with foreign design elements. One cool thing was the Orciari seat backs that were on the BMP cars. They are quite unique in that they use the factory seat and head rest while allowing the shell to attach to it using some existing hardware locations. The should be available without the body kit for those who want them.
I didn't get a chance to really dig into anything else as I was running the show at a fairly quick pace (one day !!), but it seemed that the MINI's were still an underground breed outside those used as promotional vehicles. The MINI tuning world is still pretty exclusive. The new platform has managed to keep most of the mass market tuners out of the MINI world, which I tend to think is nice. It's a small market, everyone knows everyone, which is kinda of nice, especially for tuners and retailers like us (
www.OutMotoring.com). On the down side, I did see some APC rear tail lights that had a very 'import' feel, very 'plastic'; no cover lens style with protruding cylindrical light fixtures....scary! The Inpro and Altezza tail lights are a welcome change to the over-priced OE version, although they do have more red in them. You may have seen them on the streets already.
Here's some photos:
http://www.outmotoring.com/images.html http://www.outmotoring.com/photos/20...MINI/index.htm
Lighting wasn't so hot on some of the photos, so a few are blurry, sorry.
Nov 9th, 2003, 03:07 PM
(that and I'm a poor college student, hehe).
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