Life & Work

Vintage Mini Coopers gain popularity in Kenya

mini

A Mini coopers on display during the Concours D'Elegance at the Ngong Racecourse last year. Photo/SALATON NJAU

It is Wednesday morning and as city dwellers drive through the heavy traffic on Nairobi’s Argwings Kodhek Road, a small maroon Mini Cooper claims its place in the snarl up.

By its size and age the dwarf car stands out – catching the eye of just about everyone on the road, walking or driving. Its number plate, KRC 147, speaks of its age.

This is one of the many Mini Coopers that now populate Nairobi roads. The small vehicles that have over the years been popularised in the British comedy series, Mr Bean, are back on Kenyan roads big time.

The car, whose production briefly stopped in 2000 is back with a big bang and new models are rolling out of assembly lines in their thousands.

In Kenya, however, it is the older models that have caught the imagination of Mini lovers. There is even an owners’ – The Mini Lovers – club in Nairobi.

Pascal Maithya, who bought his first 1968 Mini Cooper, five years ago for Sh15,000 is one of the Mini lovers. Then a shell of a car, Pascal put his acquisition in the garage and slowly started remodelling it.

One year later, he bought his second Cooper and soon found himself with several old Minis thus becoming a big fan.

Soon, chasing Minis became a near full-time occupation that saw him go around the garages buying them besides spending time online looking for any offers. With time, the tables turned and there developed strong demand for the vehicles he had refurbished.

“Prices are not the same for Mini Coopers anymore because previous owners have realised the build-up of demand for classic cars,” said Pascal who still keeps his first Mini Cooper – the KRC 147.

He has travelled with the car for long distances, including to Arusha and Malindi and the Mini has won him various vintage honours including the 3rd position in the vintage category in the 2013 edition of Concurs d’Elegance – an annual motor sport event showcasing well-maintained vintage cars and motorcycles.

As he drove around the vehicle and entered different motoring events, Pascal met other Mini Cooper lovers leading to the founding of The Mini Lovers club. The club helps members import spares as a group cutting shipping costs and reducing the cost of owning the vintage cars.

The club also rents out the vehicles for corporate functions, promotions, weddings and CSR activities, inclusive of a driver, at an agreed fee.

In April an entourage of about 10 Mini Coopers was seen driving through central Nairobi with the rear windows branded ‘Ready. Steady…’ and the drivers wearing luminous green face masks.

This was the launch of the Nokia X series, a marketing event that saw the company hire the vintage cars for an entire week.

Lillian Nganda, Nokia’s communications manager, said the mobile phone firm had opted to use Mini Coopers because they stand out – a quality that fits with the phones brand.

The Kiamburing TT, a quarterly road race that takes place in Kiambu County for both vintage and new cars also brought the owners of Mini Coopers together last month.

Pascal, who has always refurbished his cars with the help of a mechanic, says getting an old Mini back of the road could set one back by as much as Sh500,000 depending on the condition of the car.

“Refurbishment can include buying another engine, the body work, changing the interior and converting the gearbox from a manual to an automatic one,” he says.

The Mini Coopers Club organizes a number of road trips where they test drive the vintage cars, often having to service a number in the process -but that is the fun of it.

The mini cars are now popular with many Nairobi residents who say they are both fuel efficient and versatile in the Nairobi traffic.

In 2000 production of the Rover Mini was taken up by BMW and reintroduced in 2001 as the MINI, a high performance vehicle unlike its predecessor which was viewed as a low cost vehicle.

Last year, BMW rolled out the third generation Mini Cooper at a much higher retail price. The Cooper S is a fast car with a vastly improved interior that runs on a more solid automobile technology platform compared to its predecessor.

“Apart from transiting to becoming a German machine, the Mini Cooper comes with a larger engine capacity and all the BMW safety features,” says Michael de Souza, the BMW sales manager at Bavaria Auto.

Mr De Souza, however, says Bavaria Auto is still in talks with BMW over the Mini Cooper S dealership licence.

“We cannot give a price indication for the Mini Cooper S until we finalise the contract,” he said, adding that company is only servicing the vehicles and supplying spare parts.

Used car dealers sourcing the cars from the UK said it costs a minimum of Sh1.4 million and could go up to a high of Sh1.9 million for the new generation Mini.

Over the years BMW has grown the MINI family to include convertibles, two-seat coupes, and even smaller cross-overs.

It is available in a 1.5-liter three-cylinder engine and a 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine – both with a BMW twin-power, twin-scroll turbo.

Last month, Forbes gave a list of cars that were best for city dwellers and scored the Mini Cooper among the top five citing its fuel efficiency and ability to maneuver urban traffic with ease.

In the review, small and mid-size vehicles are said to be on the verge of re-emerging in the face of growing city traffic.