Scrat is a 2006 MINI Cooper S, and Sputnik’s replacement. Scrat went into production in week 41 of 2006 at the MINI plant in Oxford, England. Despite some problems with the New Hampshire DMV (how dare they observe a national holiday!), I took delivery on November 10th. Unfortunately, said DMV snafu has thus far resulted in Scrat being garage-bound for the majority of his first weekend on US soil. It was a really nice weekend, too…
Scrat’s the fun car, and my entry ticket into a fantastic community of rabid MINI owners. When not hauling me to work, he’ll be hauling around a track or on the longest set of twisties between any two given points A and B. I’ve got a fairly lengthy list of planned mods that I’ll be working on as money becomes available. Nothing too extreme, but I’d like to liberate a bit more power and make some suspension tweaks for better handling on road courses. Even without a single mod, however (excepting the iPod adapter, of course), the car is brilliant and needs nothing. It handles better than more dedicated cars costing many times more, is fairly economical, comes with a community of thousands of like-mind motorists (who should probably have their heads checked), and (most importantly) puts a grin on my face every time I get behind the wheel. That alone is worth the price of admission.
Specs
2006 MINI Cooper S
- Chili Red with black roof and mirror caps
- Premium package
- Sport package
- Cold Weather package
- Limited-slip diff
- Rear fog light
- Tartan Red cloth and Panther Black leather upholstry
- Anthracite headliner
- Body-color dash and door inserts
Executed mods and gadgets
- Valentine One radar detector
- Garmin StreetPilot 2610 GPS
- Dension ice>Link: Plus iPod adapter
- MINI euro parcel shelf
- MINI aux audio input
- MINI-FINI cup holder
- PanaVise inDash bracket for mounting the GPS
- Ian Cull’s “MINI Circuit” for auto-up windows, among other things
- el-cheapo blind spot mirrors
Planned mods
- Alta cold air intake—this was on Sputnik, and will be re-installed on Scrat once the break-in’s done
- brake light flasher
- custom stripes, probably similar—if not identical to—Sputnik’s
- Exhaust
- 15% smaller supercharger pulley
- adjustable camber plates
- larger rear swaybar
- big brake kit
Not exactly a short list, is it?