2004 Mini Cooper S on 2040-cars

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Utah man builds iRacing simulator inside 2005 Mini Cooper S

Brent Cheney is an artist and part-time racer who used to own a tuning shop for time attack cars. That's why, when he decided to get into iRacing and wanted an immersive simulator, he wouldn't settle for mere technical excellence. As first covered by Salt Lake City's KSL news, then in more detail by Motor Authority, Cheney decided he wanted to cut a car into pieces, and rebuild it in the basement of his Salt Lake City, Utah house with a racing sim inside. He needed "the right aesthetic," ruling out something like a Toyota Corolla, but he refused the sacrilege of cutting up anything too precious to an enthusiast. After narrowly missing out on buying a 1999 BMW M3 convertible, then turning to a Mitsubishi Eclipse done up in splashy green like Brian O'Conner's car in the original "Fast and Furious," he ended up with a Mini Cooper. The Brit was a better choice than the German and the Japanese, in fact, thanks to a hardtop that would create a dark enclosure, and seams and shutlines in the right places to hide the necessary cuts.  Cheney found a 2005 Cooper S that had been junked over an engine issue, getting the coupe for $1,000 and parting out the internals he didn't need for the same $1,000 he paid. After watching a YouTube video on how to cut a car, he dismembered the Cooper into seven pieces with a cordless reciprocating saw wielding a Diablo Steel Demon 6-inch blade, and carried the pieces into his man cave. He reassembled those pieces on a wood base with the aid of 200 brackets and many more sheetmetal screws, nuts, and bolts. Once the car was put back together, body parts and trim pieces hid all the seams. Before reinstalling the interior, the artist laid in the sim equipment. After doubling the minimum requirements for iRacing, Cheney's system included an Intel Core i9 8-core processor NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 8 GB Founders Edition video card running Windows 10 inside a Thermaltake PC case under the Cooper S hood, as the new "engine." A Fanatec Podium DD1 direct-drive steering column and wheel and Fanatec V3 pedals went in the cabin, along with a Harman Kardon home theater 5.1 surround sound system. He mounted the wheel on the Mini's steering column with a fabricated adapter, put the Fanatec pedals where the car's pedals had been, put a ButtKicker Mini transducer in the original Mini seat for extra realism, and hid all the wiring beneath the carpet and interior trim components.

Sorting through the rat's nest that is Mini's model history

What do Austin, Morris, British Motor Corporation, British Motor Holdings, British Leyland, Rover Group, and BMW all have in common? Each company has had a hand in bringing the world a sprightly, fuel-efficient, front-wheel-drive fun box on wheels - the Mini.
The Sir Alec Issigonis-designed car has been sold under more brand names and with more model designations than most of us would guess. For seven generations of the classic Mini, from 1959 to 2000, the car carried a bewildering number of model names as well. (Note that's even before BMW took over the nameplate, and starting building cars styled as "MINI" rather than "Mini" in 2001.)
As is its want, Hemmings Daily has taken the time to break down the complex lineage of the car, with a kind of model etymology that makes for a pretty entertaining read. Click over to the site to give it a go; but check out our gallery of classic Mini pictures before you jump.

MINI Cooper SE Convertible concept is a one-off EV for sun worshippers

Mini rummaged through its parts bin to create a new concept called Cooper SE Convertible. As its name implies, the electric ragtop was built by dropping the Cooper SE hatchback's battery-powered drivetrain into the body of a gasoline-powered Cooper S Convertible. Visually, the Cooper SE Convertible stands out from its gasoline-powered sibling by adopting some of the Cooper SE's defining styling cues. It wears a plastic panel instead of a grille, an array of powertrain-specific emblems, yellow accents, and 17-inch Power Spoke wheels. Mini also added a handful of "THIS TOY IS ELECTRIC" decals, and it kept the power-operated soft top that opens or closes in 18 seconds. Power comes from the Cooper SE's electric drivetrain, which consists of an electric motor that draws electricity from a 28.9-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack to zap the front wheels with 181 horsepower and 199 pound-feet of torque. The hatchback's maximum driving range checks in at about 110 miles, which is hardly a stellar number, and we don't know what effect chopping off the top has on that figure. Mini stresses that the Cooper SE Convertible is not a production model. We're not surprised: the current-generation Hardtop is at the end of its life cycle and its successor should make its debut in the not-too-distant future. However, the concept suggests (though nothing is official yet) that the next-generation Convertible will be offered with an electric powertrain. And while drop-top sales are dropping around the world, but Mini said in 2021 that it won't leave the segment. The next Mini Convertible is tentatively scheduled to make its debut in 2025. Related Video This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.