When I ordered my MINI the last thing I was looking for in this car was a way to cart surfboards to the beach. I live across the street from the beach so 99% of the time I walk my boards down to the water. When I ordered my MINI I didn’t want the factory racks because they leave post with covers in the roof when not in use. I didn’t want that.

When I go on my annual surf trip each year I pull a covered trailer with racks and boards on top behind my Jeep Wrangler. Now, after 6 months of owning the MINI, I have found a few occasions where I want to run over to the east coast of Florida on an overnight trip and get some surfing in, but dread the bouncy, noisy ride of my Jeep pulling the “surf rig” trailer – not to mention the gas I would suck up doing it.

I had looked at the Yakima, Saris and Thule racks for the MINI, but either found them too expensive (almost double the cost) or could only get the racks from distributors that were very far from my home town of Destin, FL. Well, I purchased the Mont Blanc rack made for MINIs from www.MossMotors.com for $289 plus $20 shipping

The rack is a type that clips or “holds” on to the roof’s rain rail (black plastic rain gutter) on the driver & passenger side door area only
When I got the rack in the mail the first thing I did was “dry” fit the clamps and found out the Mont Blanc system uses a very good design for the clamps by not just grabbing the rain rail but they also sits up under the rain rail deeply enough to clear the door’s window and grabs a lot of real estate in the process.

After the full assembly of the rack I put it my the MINI’s roof and found it very tight with out any trade-offs of the clamps pinching the plastic rain rail. I loaded my 10 foot epoxy (epoxy = very light) surfboard on the rack. My board was too wide to rack to one side so I had to “rack” it down the middle of the car, meaning I had to unscrew my aftermarket stubby antenna. No big deal for me as I never listen to the radio – only CDs anyway. The board is held in place tightly with bungee cords.

I took the whole rig for a test drive up to 65 mph (not an easy task in my small tourist town) and the board didn’t budge, nor did I hear any substantial wind noise.

Now my biggest concern was would the rack clamps “mar” or leave marks on my MINI’s roof or rain rail after I took it off? Nope, I completely removed the rack an inspected the roof and rails and didn’t find any marks from its use. SCORE!!!! That is what I wanted.
I’ll be doing a surf trip of 330+ miles for Christmas. I’ll report back here again with the results.




See all the pics here:
http://public.fotki.com/PMS/panhandl..._for_the_mini/

 

i think if i did not get the oem roof racks, i woulda gone with the mont blanc. they do look good and appear to be solid also. are they easily removed? and can they be locked on if you wanted to leave'em on with your board ontop while grabbing something to eat?

btw, how do you bungee your board on? just onto the racks or do you bungee 'em thru your open windows? i'm used to the flat luggage style straps that i weave over and under the cross bars and board. still i get paranoid whenever there's a heavy crosswind while flying at highway speeds.

nice board too. looks practically brand new.

 

I used bungees, but I like the black rubber ones better. I just need to pick up some more of those types. I had over kill in the pic above for the test run. You can lock the rack to the car, but not the board to the rack. I guess I'll need to eat that taco in my car in the drive thru.

The board is about 5 years old, but is a wood vener made to look like an antique.

 

I purchased the MB rack as well after extensive research on opinions mostly over at mini2.com. Like you said its big selling point is that it hooks well under the window edge, not just the plastic rails as the other brands do. Another plus is you can still open your sunroof. Great for those adjustments without stopping. It's very sturdy, I've been in an accident with two pair of skis on it and it didn't budge.

 

I always liked the look of the Mont Blanc, but there is not much info from the user end. Thanks for the write-up. Look forward to learning how it holds up on your longer trip.