ROADSTER WELCOME ADDITION

TO MINI COOPER’S LINEUP FOR 2012

Here is my latest are review on examiner.com.

www.examiner.com/review/2012-mini-cooper-roadster-fun-and-efficient

It’s on the Mini Cooper S Roadster, a car I had a lot of fun with. Of course, my opinion probably was swayed by its six-speed manual transmission. I always have fun with stick shifts. Or nearly always do.

In fact, I had so much fun I immediately emailed the guy in charge of media relations at BMW to see if we couldn’t have this car at SAMA’s annual Rides-N-Smiles event in November.

I have written about Rides-N-Smiles before (check out my listings for last November and it comes up first) so I won’t go into great detail here about it.

Briefly, SAMA is our media organization (Southern Automotive Media Association) and Rides-N-Smiles is an annual event it sponsors in which we provide rides around the Homesstead-Miami Speedway to children who are cancer patients or survivors in programs at Baptist Children’s Hospital and Miami Children Hospital, along with their families.

Last year some veterans from the Wounded Warrior Project came along and escorted the children out to the cars. This year we plan to get more of those veterans involved as well and give them rides throughout the afternoon.

It looks like a busy day is coming up.

Now where was I?

Oh, yes. The Mini Cooper S Roadster.

It’s a new model for 2012. And though it is front-wheel drive (I’d prefer RWD) it is so much fun to drive I was hoping to get it on the track for the full experience.

Thanks to BMW, we’ll have that opportunity.

I’ll let you know how it goes.