​We haven't had an Economy Run for a while, which is a shame: today's run was a lot of fun! 

A fair turnout of 6 Minis met at BP Takanini at a very reasonable 9am. After filling the fuel tanks and refusing to share our fuel-saving secrets, we gently departed one at a time. 

The Muries' route was cleverly planned to avoid traffic lights, and even managed to avoid a fair amount of traffic. 

Some of the twisty, scenic roads around Clevedon and Hunua were sheer torture to drive so lightly, though on a couple of long downhill stretches we managed to get up to the speed limit in neutral (or "6th gear" as Kevin called it, not so subtly bragging that his Mini has 5 gears). 

The questions along the way were very easy, and were mainly to reassure us that we'd gone the right way. Even still, I managed to go the wrong way a couple of times; conserving speed through a roundabout doesn't do any good if you're going too fast to count the exits.

After a couple of hours and 113km of pleasant, relaxing driving we all made it back to the Friend of the Farmer Cafe in Takanini, where we shared our stories and fuel-saving tips:

Alan Murie had the clever idea to fold down the Moke's windscreen to reduce wind resistance. As a result navigator Michelle received a (small) bird to the face at speed. Ouch!

Adam and Jessica's orange Mini was loaded down with 4 people, so they decided to aim for the "most fuel used" award. Their wildlife encounter was a wasp inside the car, while negotiating a very challenging piece of road at speed. 

Richard and Anthony were driving Steve's yellow track day car, which seemed to save fuel when going downhill only to blast it all out the exhaust pipe when the throttle came back on. Time to do something about those valve stem seals, Steve! 

Kevin's injected Sport 5 just seemed to cruise along with no drama, though it rolled faster downhill than my car. Something to do with the extra weight of that 5th gear I think. 

We didn't see Simon's Mini 1000 until well after we'd finished, it turns out he'd been taking it very seriously indeed, even going so far as shutting the engine off while going downhill. Those of us with vacuum assisted brakes considered this an unfair advantage, especially since he won the economy run by a huge margin. 

Results: 
Carburetted Mini:
1st - Simon Lawrence, 4.82 litres
2nd - Richard Undie, 6.14 litres
3rd - Grant Bowyer, 6.45 litres
4th - Alan Murie, 8.93 litres
5th - Adam Jenkin, 11.84 litres

Injected Mini:
1st - Kevin Taylor, 6.31 litres

No new MINIs entered. Maybe next year? Speaking of next year: 

Thanks again to Alan and Shelagh Murie for planning and organising such a great run. It sounds like we're all looking forward to doing it again next year, if you're still keen! 

‘It’s the most wonderful time of the year’ the opportunity to get all those Minis out, cover them in lights, decorations and spread some Christmas cheer. We started of at Greenlane with a turnout of over 20 cars, there was discussion of whether president Steve and his temperamental Cooper would show, but it arrived fashionably late driven by Santa Steve exclaiming “HoHoHo, Merry Christmas”

With the convoy all together we head out to our first stop out east. Here we cruised down a street with houses covered in lights and a large crowd of children smiling, laughing and waving as a mass of Minis rumbled down the street.

From there we wiggled our way out of the suburbs to a short open road cruise out to Beachlands. We all parked up on another beautiful street full of lights and got out to enjoy the cars and the lights together. There was lots of conversation with locals who were grinning from ear to ear. What a beautiful sight to see. In conversation with two children, one being the daughter of the club president and the other the son of our club captain, the decision was unanimous that the orange mini was the best..... :D (Sorry Steve and Zac)

 From here it was back to the suburbs to spot a couple houses scattered around the place while we enjoyed the loud pedals down some back streets. We ended up at Uldale Place, which was East Auckland’s ‘Franklin road’. The road was coned off to the public but we had special permission to park the cars down the street, a Minis-only line up in a street covered in a serious display of lights.

After we had spent a short while walking around enjoying the view, a bunch of cars made their way home and a group of about 10 cars headed to McDonalds to enjoy a late night snack or hot chocolate. We debriefed on the evenings adventure and shared the countless photos that had been taken throughout the evening. Was a night full of Christmas spirit and I look forward to next year. Merry Christmas Everyone!

Hello Officer, I see you have decked your car out in festive flashing lights too! 

​A very special club night, with Trent Dixon revealing his almost finished race car: a monster RWD Mini with a Honda H22A VTEC under the... roof?  

It's not quite finished, it has yet to finalise the wiring, computer, and be tuned on the dyno, but it's very impressive already.

Watch out for its shakedown run at Hampton Downs during the Club's track day on 17th November. 

​by Tony Maulder

Celebrating 60 years of Mini, held at the British Motor Museum at Gaydon near Oxford on Sunday 4th of August 2019.

The Metro & Mini show was a one day event and had probably over 1000 Minis attending. It had display areas, and parking for visiting minis as well as entry to the Museum. I arrived in the rear car park for non minis, next to the Jaguar test track.

Entering the show  my first port of call was the Cooper Register tent, as I belong to the UK Cooper Register. The stand had pride of place near the entrance to the Museum. Talking to one of the register  members, he said he had read about me in the Cooper  World magazine and made quite a fuss over me by introducing me to the club officials. A 1963 Monte Carlo Cooper was on the club stand as well as a Downton Cooper S , and a cut down 6 cylinder jag engined Mini and a rare MK III Cooper S with a sunroof. An absolutely magnificent display of club members Minis .

A stand next to us was the 59 Register which had a display of 30 or so 1959 Minis . Next to them were the woody vans, Then a group of Metros. Opposite them were a group of kit cars including a Unipower Mini in the central pride of place by the main vehicle entrance to the show. Beside the Unipower were the show and shine cars, including a very well restored red and black 1071 Austin Cooper S.

The Action Arena was between the show Minis  and the Cooper Register display. This is were the Italian Job stunt drivers performed. The police chasing the three Coopers, then they chased the bus, and then the stunt driver weaved a Moke between them and did a lap in a Mini up on two wheels

All to soon the fine and sunny day was over, and I was off to the nearby Malt Shovel Inn, for a pub meal and local beer, need I say more.
Oxford Mini Factory Tour tomorrow, and then head off along the M4 towards Bristol For the International Mini Meet the next weekend.

by Tony Maulder

​IMM and Mini 60th birthday were held at Washpool Farm, Easter Compton, near Bristol in the UK, from the 8th to 12th of August.
Bristol is known for the Severn Bridge to Wales, the iron steam ship Great Britain, the Clifton Suspension bridge, the first  Concord aircraft that flew (50 years ago) and the large international yearly balloon festival, which was on over the IMM weekend.

I turned up on the first morning, when the campsite opened, to the sight of over a thousand Minis queued up in a paddock to pay the £100 to enter theMini Meet. Many of the Minis were towing small caravans. Great to wander around and watch the muddy Minis driving in and out of the Farm.

Minis were well represented at the food outlets, as ice cream vans, barbecues, pizza ovens and food stalls
There was an Italian Job display, bus, police car, even a van with its doors still on ! and the three Coopers. Many clubs had displays, the Mokes, the Clubmans 50th and even Mr Bean wandering around in his Mini with his little puppy doll. Many clubs had camped together in the various fields and had displays there.

This was the 4th Mini 60 celebration I attended in the UK. Unfortunately it was disrupted a bit by the squally weather over the weekend, which even closed one side of the nearby Severn Bridge.