Ah yes, that took me back to the good old days of when the MINI was first introduced. Back when it was totally a seller's market and every MINI dealer was a bit of a dick, including the 3 dealers where I had placed deposits of $500 to $1000 so as to be able to purchase a Cooper S at full MSRP. This was circa late 2000 / early 2001 when I was able to find 3 BMW dealers who would become MINI dealers in a year or so. All were very nice and promised, in writing, to sell me a new MINI Cooper S when they first became available without any additional mark up.
And, like clockwork, all three stealerships later went back on their word and offered to sell me a Cooper S as we had discussed, but at thousands of dollars over sticker once they found out there was a strong demand for these cars. MINI USA was no help, explaining that each MINI dealer set their own prices blah, blah, blah. Never mind these dealers had already agreed to sell to me at MSRP. I was lucky to get my refundable deposits back - and that took a while.
The only saving grace back in early 2002 when the MINI was launched was that BMW Corporate actually owned two MINI dealers (don't know if they still do...). And these two dealers would not mark up the MINIs they were selling. One of these dealers was in Manhattan, and the other one was north of NYC in Westchester NY. Quite a bit away from me in Texas, but I was pissed off enough with the other dealers to not mind the distance. So, I was able to secure one of the few early Cooper S models available that was not automatically put into demonstrator duty at a dealership, as most of them were back then when the Cooper S was launched. And I am probably one of the few early MINI owners that did not pay though the nose to buy a car the first year or two after it was launched.
Just this past weekend I drove past one of the MINI dealers here in DFW and I bet I saw 200 MINIs just sitting on the lot waiting for new owners. What a difference.
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