SFist: New Clubman from MINI Makes Its Debut in San Francisco

spysea

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 07:31:12 -0800

Anyone see the smartcar? www.smartusa.com

bluecanary

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:56:21 -0800

"Buy American"? the only thing buying american gets you is that the profits go into American CEO's pockets. The cars and the jobs that go with them, are all manufactured overseas. The only thing America produces are rich executives. If you want your "buy American" dollars to actually go into american pockets, you'd be wise to "buy Japanese."

SFistJim

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:23:19 -0800

An 84 Accord dwarfs any kind of MINI Cooper. The MINI is smaller. Newer cars tend to have lots of heavy safety and emissions equipment - the kind of stuff car makers didn't worry about as much a quarter century ago. Compare the Civic, if you'd like - it's about the size that the Accord used to be.

wsanders

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:06:28 -0800

The Mini is bigger and 500 lb heavier than my 1984 Honda Accord was. Gets slightly worse mileage too. Sheesh what passes for a "small" car these days. At 2689 lb curb weight it's only 500 lb shy of my current ride, a 99 CR-V truck.

SFistJim

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:06:31 -0800

Well, all right. The new deal is that it's tough for marketers to break through and get the attention of the kids these days. Some people find this kind of novel advertising of interest. Readers responded to this photo much more than RainbowFallingOnObamaRallyChurch or LastPhoneBoothInSF anyway.

generati

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:56:30 -0800

Good luck.

SFistJim

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:26:40 -0800

It's funny, the bag of "cash" they gave me turned out to be filled with nothing but newspaper bundled and cut out to the size of folding money. I'm going to contact a barrister (or a solicitor?) and then sue them in London. Wish me luck!

generati

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:15:10 -0800

I hope they paid you to post this.

SFistJim

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:02:48 -0800

Believe they officially went on sale Saturday, which is when the three car rolling advertisement was seen driving around the Castro. Over the next several months, the dealership in S.F. will get about 1 car per week to sell to the buying public. Other dealerships are about 30 miles away from SF so it'll take a while before you see a bunch of them.

manys

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:53:20 -0800

I thought the Clubman was out by now, but yeah I dig it. No AWD though, which is dumb.

SFistJim

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 17:38:42 -0800

The last time i saw a Volt, it was powered by three conventional lead-acid car batteries and was shod with the most ridonkulous-looking Michelin "Green-X" tires that would be illegal to use on the road. it's easy for me to forget that the Volt is a show car. it would be nice if gm could build the volt the way they say they probably will.

RinconHillSF

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 17:29:30 -0800

I'm holding out for the Chevy Volt for my next car purchase ... buy American. :)

SFistJim

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 17:18:23 -0800

Ideally, they'd have it on both sides of the car, but that might affect structural integrity too much. or they could just add real doors and make it longer still. less sporty-looking tho. and of course, ride a bike, problem solved.

bebycik

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:23:16 -0800

Hmmm... That ClubDoor would only work when parking on two-way streets. In the one-way paradise of SOMA, passengers of the "Zug" would be out of luck 50% of the time.