First time soon-to-be Mini owner here. Pretty excited, to be honest. Bought it because I've never learned to drive manual. Now I'm knocking on 40's door, self-driving cars are seemingly becoming ubiquitous, and I just read about how the new TT doesn't even have a manual gearbox option, so I kinda feel like I'm running out of fun manual cars to learn on. Time to act! Bought a 2013 because I heard Gen3 was a bit drab driving-experience-wise by comparison. Has about 60k km on it. It will be our second car (after a 2015 Ford Explorer), replacing a 2003 Ford Escape which was actually my first car and finally decided to up and die this winter. Since it's my first time attempting to drive manual, I wanted to go somewhat easy on myself and opted against the supercharger. Besides, the boss said no. Chose just a basic Pepper White, since I figured that would give me the most options for eventual cosmetic upgrades. I'm scheduled to pick it up on Tuesday, but here's a photo from the dealer. Looking forward to learning from and sharing with the community here!
Looks promising! Its on the road and you have not hurt it, good job. Now all this will help you learn to drive a manual. Go to one of the vendors under the sponsors tab and order a rear swaybar, ether some coil overs or some lowering springs and nice struts. As you get better at driving you can add a cat back exhaust.......... The Moding will continue as you get better at driving. It can be addictive! this will help really I promise!! MA we are here to help .....................................................spend your money.
Detroit Tuned are just across the bridge in, well, Detroit. I can highly recommend them, had cylinder head work done by them.