Ya I know there's nothing that can be done to stop it. I figured it was exhaust on the back with regular road dust. In the summer the dust is light brown from dirt. When we had hard top Minis the backs would get built up with black carbon from the exhaust. It always seemed to do this more in the winter, but I think that it may just have been more visible since most of the road dust here in the winter is snow! LOL Even my truck has carbon on the rear bumper from exhaust, which also seems worse in the winter when it's really cold but it only collects on the bumper.

So on the way home around 530PM I took a picture of Main street here in Lansford! It's lit up for Christmas.






And usually there's a few cars here, but today it was exceptionally quite.

 

It's under there somewhere...

 

ha ha, love this!
That's really neat actually because you can still recognize that it's a MINI where other cars look all the same once covered

Ours has not been under too much snow yet. We just got lucky it was in the garage during the heavy snow downpour. Just once it got maybe one inch. But the winter is far from over and I'm sure it will get caught in a storm at some point or an other...

So how did the fabric hold up? did it look like it was forced stretched from the inside?

 

I didn't notice. I cleaned the roof off a bit before I opened the door.

One thing I did notice though... If you have snow on the boot/trunk lid, clear it off before you open the trunk or it will end up getting dumped inside the boot as it slides off the forward edge of the trunk lid, builds up in the surround for the boot opening, then overflows into the boot! The well between the rubber seal and the bodywork also fills up with snow all around from the act of opening the boot, and stops the boot lid from closing properly unless you dig it out first.

I had been keeping my snow brush in the boot, that's moving to behind the driver's seat now!

 

True that, best to clear the trunk lid first as it does drop it straight down in the trunk. I noticed yesterday that the rear spoiler must be designed with a fair amount of "give" in the mechanism. During my commute in the a.m., the rear wing was in the up position on the freeway and I collected a lot of snow/ice that got compressed under the wing when it closed. I cleaned it out when I arrived at work and all works fine.


-Steven

 

mak, I was looking forward to your posting another pic of the digital thermometer display on your R59 -- I saw that Minot AFB recorded -29F (and -51F wind chill) at 7 am yesterday.

Top down motoring, anyone?

 

That is correct about the temps. With our weather these past 2 weeks I have mainly been driving my truck though. We have had temperature swings from near freezing to -29 and this put a lot of ice on the roads, light snowfall, and strong winds producing some drifting snow. I was glad I have too because a couple of days on my way to work stopping at the gas station in the morning if I had the car I would have been empty... Even the entrance to the gas station on base and the road on base to my shop has been getting deep snow drifts and even my chevy 2500 on 33's was pushing some snow with it's bumper at times and I would have been late in the roadster waiting for a plow or enough traffic to pack it down to make it through. And when it's not like that the roads are covered in ice. I'd rather not risk getting the roadster hit, or even worse stuck in some snow drifts in an area with no cell coverage with -51 wind chill. Also with the drifting snow, visibility in the dark is better in the truck because the headlights and windshield are above the thickest bit of blowing snow that make it hard to see in the roadster.

Here's a view from my truck going to Minot once the sun is up. Imagine this in the with your line of eyesight about 3-4 feet lower...


And here's the truck that was pushing snow. Sorry it's out of focus, I was trying to take pictures of the super fast dog in the bottom of the picture! For a size comparison the Roadster is shorter in length than the cab of the truck and the top of truck tire is almost level with the top of the Roadsters hood...

 

Nice weekend in Chicagoland before the next snow arrives…





-Steven

 

There will be no more snow in Chicago.

 

LOL…….ok


-Steven

 

I painted my light bezels, grill surround, side scuttles pepper white to match the car. Looks better. I still need to black out the waistline, and do something about the door handles. I wish I could find come cheap covers to paint, but cheap is not available. lol.

I also cut out some red reflective S's to replace the original ones. Looks kinda cool. In day they look the same soon as a light shines at them looks like there lit up!






And when light shines on them...

 

Hello Makaveliks, I wonder if you could get some striping material (Vinyl) that you could use to cover the handles. It seems to come in a wide variety of colors. You might also think about plasti-dipping the handles and painting the pasti-dip. It looks great!

 

I can dream, can't I, Steven?

 

Good tip! I doubt I'd find the pepper white vinyl. The paint was hard enough to find! But the plastidip tip sounds pretty good! I plastidipped the trim to match on my wife's black All4, but didn't think about trying to paint it!

 

[QUOTE=BlueToy;3859709]Nice weekend in Chicagoland before the next snow arrives…




Another great picture Steven.


Here is my 2013 Christmas photo:

 

^ Nice photo David


-Steven

 

Nice! This is a nice change from the PW with black wheels and black everything else. I can't wait for the better weather to get my changes done, all this creativity is contagious!

 

Nice shot! Up until yesterday I would have said that we didn't have enough liquid water here at the moment to take a shot like that, but yesterday a month's worth seemed to fall at once...

 

I'm getting cold just looking at pictures from the Great Frozen North. Thank God we're moving to the Florida Gulf Coast in June.

 

Fooling about with tilt/shift in Google+ photos...



This one shows up the hideous wheelarch gaps thanks to the salt coating and the bad lighting. Guess I need to look at lowering springs at some point!

 

Spiney - getting in the salt and dirt now . I know the R58 / R59 can create a little more " dirt boot " issues that most MINI have. Don't know if you saw this but it looks like the rear mud flaps will work on the JCW Rear bumper. Since they share the same corner parts and main structure it should fit the R58 and R59 models with that bumper.

Part # 82160415116 Rear Factory Mud Flaps / Splash Guards Contoured ( Rear Cooper S and JCW Bumper )


http://www.ecstuning.com/Search/SiteSearch/82160415116/ES196384/




Link to the thread:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ts-new-26.html


Just wanted to let you know.

 

and the new year begins…



and the Roadster grew fangs…





-Steven

 

Please tell me she doesn't live outside.

 

She does…...not a garage queen


-Steven

 

At least yours was still a roadster for the new year lol




New Years spent in a loaner