We Spent A Weekend With 350 MINIs And Their Owners. Here’s What 20 Years Of MINI Takes The States Looks Like

On August 21, 2006, a convoy of MINIs left Monterey, California, to celebrate the first 45 Cooper S models delivered with the John Cooper Works GP Kit. Twenty years later, MINI Takes The States started in Monterey again, this time with nearly 350 cars. We drove the California leg in a Paul Smith Edition Cooper S. By the time we reached Lake Tahoe, the owners had told us what they want from MINI next: a bigger Countryman, and a car that’s fun to drive, even if it ends up rear-wheel drive.

That first rally ran for 14 days and about 4,000 miles, finishing in Lakeville, Connecticut. MINI USA has repeated it every other year since, skipping only 2020, so this year’s event is the 10th. For the anniversary, MINI broke up the cross-country format into three long-weekend rallies in California, New York, and Florida. You no longer need two weeks of vacation to join, just a Friday off.

From Monterey To Sonoma On Pacific Coast Highway 1

Read Also

2 week ago

BMW iX3 Production Goes 24/7 As A Third Shift Is Added

39 autotech

Every MTTS day opens with a Rise & Rally, a morning meetup with a light breakfast before the convoy heads out. Friday’s was at Cardinale Stadium in Seaside, next to Monterey. Then came the part most people sign up for: Highway 1 north, past Half Moon Bay and San Francisco, before the route turned inland toward Sonoma wine country.

Read Also

2 month ago

BMW Knows The Biggest Threat To The M3 Comes From Within

55 autotech

That night, the MINI Mixer at the SOMO Village Event Center in Rohnert Park had DJs and a room full of owners trading stories from the road. Photos of MTTS tend to show the cars, but this is the part they miss. The drive gets everyone to the same place, and the evenings turn a parking lot full of strangers into something closer to a club.

Over Carson Pass To Lake Tahoe With Hundreds Of MINIs

Saturday’s Rise & Rally was at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa. From there the route ran through the vineyards of Sonoma and Napa Valley, then climbed over Carson Pass and dropped down to Lake Tahoe. Hundreds of MINIs made the same trip, older cars mixed in with brand-new ones, along with modified builds and some properly quirky models.

Our car for both days was a Paul Smith Edition Cooper S. In the US, the Paul Smith Edition is a $1,400 package for the Cooper S that requires the $4,100 Iconic Trim. It brings exclusive paint colors and a few small touches, like the designer’s signature on the tailgate and his hand-drawn rabbit on the floor mats. Like every new Cooper, it shifts through a seven-speed dual-clutch. We’d have happily traded that for a six-speed manual, and as it turned out, we weren’t the only ones.

Saturday night ended at Palisades Tahoe in Olympic Valley, which hosted the 1960 Winter Olympics back when it was still called Squaw Valley. Paradox and Sugar Ray played the headliner event. Sunday’s Coopers & Coffee at the same venue was the send-off, and we spent the rest of the day on the roads around the lake.

Our Favorite Cars At MTTS Were The Odd Ones

MINI promises hundreds of unique cars at its morning meetups, and it kept that promise. A few MINI GPs turned up over the weekend, which felt right on a rally that exists because of the GP. Our favorites, though, went the other way entirely: a Cooper set up for off-road driving, and a Countryman off-roader custom-built by a local MINI dealer.

Who Shows Up For A 20-Year-Old Rally

MINI says 700 people registered for the California leg, bringing nearly 350 cars. Sean Green, who took over as Vice President of MINI Region Americas in May after running BMW Group China, cared more about another number: a quarter of attendees were under 50.

Green told us this was his second MTTS and that the closeness of the MINI community had impressed him. He had stories, too, including one about a couple who met on MTTS and later got married. And not everyone was local. We met owners from the East Coast, Florida, and the Midwest who had come out for a three-day weekend in California.

A Florida Couple With Six MINIs, All Of Them Manuals

One couple from Florida has six MINIs in the family, and every one of them is a manual. Their story starts on a trip to Europe in the early 2000s, where they fell for the brand. Back home, they spent a full year configuring their first MINI before placing the order, and it turned into a habit.

They want MINI to bring the manual back, and they’ll make that case to anyone who asks. No MINI in the current generation offers one: the JCW 1TO6 Edition was the last with three pedals, and MINI has said repeatedly that the manual isn’t coming back. When MINI made that call, 45 percent of buyers of the outgoing JCW were choosing the manual. We’re with the couple on this one.

Should The MINI Countryman Get Even Bigger?

Jean-Philippe Parain, who has run MINI globally for a year now, was on the rally too, spending time with owners and asking what they’d like to see from their cars. We had a couple of questions of our own.

The first was whether the Countryman should get bigger. Most of the owners we asked said yes, and their reasons were practical. They want to stay with MINI, but they need a properly spacious SUV, and the U25 Countryman, already the largest MINI on sale, isn’t big enough for them. If MINI doesn’t find that space somewhere in its lineup, those owners will find it at another brand’s dealership.

The second question poked at MINI’s favorite marketing line: is the go-kart feeling still why they buy a MINI? Mostly, no. The owners we talked to don’t think about it in those terms; they just want a MINI Cooper that’s fun to drive. So I pushed further and asked whether they’d care if a future MINI were rear-wheel drive. The answer was a flat no. Make it look like a MINI, make it fun, and they’re in.

That’s a looser brief than MINI’s marketing suggests. The 1959 Mini was built around Alec Issigonis’s transverse engine and front-wheel drive, and the modern brand has leaned on that heritage for 25 years. Yet its most loyal customers, people who give up a weekend to drive their cars across a state, care far more about how a MINI looks and drives than about which wheels do the work.

MINI Brings A Flatbed So Nobody Gets Stranded

What you don’t see from behind the wheel is the support crew. Technicians and a flatbed travel with the rally, and on the California leg the crew fixed what it could on the spot at no charge. If a repair needed a dealer, MINI towed the car to the closest one, and when the work took longer, it handed the owner a MINI to finish the rally.

One person on the rally joked that if your MINI is on its last legs, MTTS might be the cheapest way to get it fixed. We can’t confirm anyone has actually tried it, but the point holds: break down on this rally and MINI won’t leave you on the shoulder.

Before you plan around that, read MINI’s official FAQ. It says on-site work is limited and that most repairs, including tires, windshields, brakes, and engine work, get referred to the nearest MINI dealer. The tow is free even if your car is out of warranty, but the dealer’s repair bill is yours, so book a service appointment before you go.

How To Join MTTS In New York Or Florida

California is done, but two legs remain: New York from October 23 to 25 and Florida from November 13 to 15. The New York route runs through the Finger Lakes and the Adirondacks to Lake Placid. Florida takes the Tamiami Trail to Miami and then heads down the Keys to Key West.

New York schedule:

• Friday, October 23, Buffalo to Syracuse: Rise & Rally at The Falconwood (107 Beaver Is Pk Rd, Grand Island, NY 14072), 7-10 a.m.; MINI Mixer at NBT Bank Stadium (1 Tex Simone Dr, Syracuse, NY 13208), 7-10 p.m.
• Saturday, October 24, Syracuse to Lake Placid: Rise & Rally at NBT Bank Stadium, 7-10 a.m.; Headliner Event at Mt Van Hoevenberg (31 Van Hoevenberg Way, Lake Placid, NY 12946), 7-10 p.m.
• Sunday, October 25: Coopers & Coffee at Mt Van Hoevenberg, 9-11 a.m., then home

Florida schedule:

• Friday, November 13, Fort Myers to Miami: Rise & Rally at JetBlue Park (11500 Fenway South Drive, Fort Myers, FL 33913), 7-10 a.m.; MINI Mixer at Wynwood Walls (2516 NW 2nd Ave, Miami, FL 33127), 7-10 p.m.
• Saturday, November 14, Miami to Key West: Rise & Rally at Haulover Park (10800 Collins Ave, Miami Beach, FL 33154), 7-10 a.m.; Headliner Event at Key West Amphitheater (21 Quay Rd, Key West, FL 33040), 7-10 p.m.
• Sunday, November 15: Coopers & Coffee at Truman Waterfront Park (Southard St, Key West, FL 33040), 9-11 a.m., then home

Registration is open at minitakesthestates.com and costs $150 per person for a long weekend, or $50 per person for a single day. Tickets must be bought in advance and are non-refundable and non-transferable. The fee covers a goodie bag, the morning Rise & Rally drive-offs with a light breakfast, and the Friday and Saturday night meetups. Hotels are up to you; MINI suggests staying within 25 miles of the Rise & Rally locations.

Owners and future owners can sign up, along with friends and family. You need to arrive in a MINI to use the main parking at the morning events, and future owners park in a separate area. Pets are welcome, but several venues allow service animals only, so check MINI’s venue list before you bring yours. If you drive an electric MINI, plan ahead: daily drives average more than 150 miles, and MINI doesn’t build charging stops into the route.

You Have To Drive MTTS To Understand It

Twenty years in, MTTS is still a car event where the cars are almost the excuse. People come in from across the country for three days of driving, and at least one couple met on it and ended up married. You can read the route map and the band lineup, but to understand why owners keep coming back every two years, you have to drive it with them.

The owners also left MINI a pretty clear wish list, at least the ones we interviewed: a bigger Countryman, a fun MINI no matter which wheels it drives, a MINI Superleggera, and, from at least one garage in Florida, a manual gearbox. MINI’s global boss was there to hear requests like these in person. Whether any of them show up in a showroom is what we’ll be watching until the next MTTS rolls out.