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MINI E takes on the Nurburgring +video

Tue, 13 Apr 2010

The electric MINI-E takes on the Nurburgring

I know, you’re rather more used to us bringing you video of something like the Nissan GT-R tackling the Nurburgring and aiming to clock a world record time. But for some reason best known to themselves, BMW have decided to put the MINI E round the Nurburgring and produce a video for our delectation.

So what stunning feat was achieved by this stock MINI E? Actually, before we get to that we ought to define stock. As a concept car the idea of stock doesn’t really apply. But MINI took one of their electric MINIs, stuck a special lightweight body on it, added a roll cage andĀ fittedĀ race spec suspension, brakes and tyres. Not exactly our definition of stock.

To be fair to MINI the motor and batteries were stock (but even the stock MINI E on a cold day should be able to get round the Nurburgring flat out) even if the rest of the car wasn’t. And the driver was former DTM racing driver Thomas Jager.

And the culmination of all this effort is that the very torquey MINI E managed the blat round the Nurburgring in about the same time as an opinionated British car journalist who’s getting too tall for his hair managed in a very stock diesel Jaguar – 9m 51.45s.

So what did this prove? Nothing that we can see. What was the point? I suppose to prove that the MINI E can go flat out for a few miles. Wow.

Enjoy the video. Although that seems unlikely as the daft director seems to have missed the point that this is an electric car, so instead of creating a soundtrack that emphasises how quiet the MINI E traversed the Nurburgring, we have totally inappropriate backing track and too much amateurish frame cuts.

Oh, well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z3BKaGqurQ


By Cars UK