2nd Gen R60 Countryman Detroit Tuned MINI Countryman

I wanted to share some detail photos of a Ccountryman that we did earlier this year. We had a Michigan customer that had a Countryman All4 on order and was going to rally with the car. She wanted a balance between looks and function. She gave me a budget and just said to do it. “Do what?” I asked. She said "Make it cool." So after a week of thinking about what she said she wanted, I came up with a game plan. The problem was there was nothing made for the car, so it gave us some freedom to actually make some parts, come up with some idea's, and make this car look like nothing else out there. She wanted a bit of the off road look, so after showing her a few photos of trucks on the net, I had a good clear idea of what she was looking for.

First I started by taking the front end off and seeing the best place to mount what we called the Brush Guard. I wanted to make sure that it would be able to support the weight that we wanted to put on it. She wanted driving and fog lights on the front of the bar, so I wanted to make sure that it was solid enough to make sure the lights didn't vibrate the lights while they are on. That could be very distracting not only to her while driving, but for other drivers on the road. Also she lives way on in the country, and I wanted to make sure it would hold up if a deer wanted to mess with it, or protect the front end from anything that she would encounter on the rally course. What you see in the photos can be taken off with screws in the grill so that the front end can be serviced by anyone without having to do anything special to get in there. Just unplug the lights from the grill and remove the bolts. As it stands right now, we welded two thick plates to the back of the bumper to make this unit work, but a production version would be completely bolt on for the street unit, or weld on for the race unit. Visually I would recommend two lights and make it a bit shorter, but could have two different units. Even just a bar for jut lights. What would you like to see on the market?







Next I looked under the car and she wanted a skid plate. So after a few mock ups, I came up the design you see below. This plate is 1/4 inch thick alum, but I would do a 3/16 inch thick alum for the production unit. The last photo you see is after a few months of off road driving and some very off road driving in the mountains at the Dragon. This unit is ready to go to market, so a buy in would be ready to go to start production.









She plans on doing a lot of camping this year for work, so she need a hitch for the Countryman. A quick call to MINI-Fini had a pre-production unit in the mail a few days later. This unit was very easy to install and had everything that was going to required for the load my customer was going to require. I told her to make sure she got trailer brakes on her unit and I went to town installing the hitch. As you can see in the photos, we flush mounted a 7 pin connector into the bumper to control not only all the trailer lights, but a brake controller. We wired in a brake controller under the arm rest in the cabin. There was no modifications to the interior and only a half round trimmed in the bumper to clear the plug. As you can see in the photos, it's very hidden and looks like it should be there. Give MINI-Fini a call and tell them you want a hitch just like the Detroit Tuned Countryman.





Next since she wanted to actually rally race her Countryman, she thought it would be a good idea to have some gauges. We decided water temperature and oil pressure would be the ones that she needed. So a quick call to Craven Speed gave us everything that we needed, gauges, mounts, and all the needed parts to make them work like the Hot Link and the first prototype of a tap-less adapter. While we where there we painted all the Gray interior trim rings to gloss black to match all the gloss black dash. It turned out very nice and should be a factory option.





The next biggest part of the build was to make it all look good on the outside. She liked the JCW car that had all the red accents but wanted a few changes. So after looking at the car for a bit, I told her all the items we planed to paint red as well as the stripes we planed to add based on the photos. We painted a lot of trim red to match the red stripes that we got from Todds Modds. As well as giving the windows a light tint to give the Countryman an over all black look. we also had the roof rack power coated black to make it blend in better.





Next we plan on a wheel and tire package to give better traction in the off-road, as well as intake and exhaust work to make it sound as mean as it looks.

 

good news! i paid for 16 skid plates and should have them in two weeks! cross fingers. it take time to make these things happen.

 

No, it is a MINI-FINI item. we can get you one if you like,

Chad
Detroit Tuned