Category Archives : books

collectible of the day: You & Your New MINI book

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You & Your New MINI
From 2004 comes another of the popular early MINI books: You & Your New MINI: Buying, Enjoying, Maintaining, Modifying by Tim Mundy.

The table of contents contains:

Chapter 1:  Genesis and evolution
Chapter 2:  New Mini in depth
Chapter 3:  The Mini One
Chapter 4:  The Mini One D
Chapter 5:  The Mini Cooper
Chapter 6:  The Cooper S
Chapter 7:  The Mini Convertible
Chapter 8:  The John Cooper Works Coopers
Chapter 9:  New Mini options and accessories
Chapter 10:  Ownership and maintenance
Chapter 11:  Tuning and modification
Chapter 12:  New Mini in competition
Appendix A:  Specifications and performance figures
Appendix B:  New MINI specialists

Mundy, Tim
You & Your New MINI: Buying, Enjoying, Maintaining, Modifying
Yeovil: Haynes Publishing, 2004
160 p.
ISBN-10: 1844250288, ISBN-13: 978-1844250288

You & Your New MINI (page 12)

You & Your New MINI (back cover)

collectible of the day: Owners Workshop Manual for the MINI

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Owners Workshop Manual for the MINI
Back in February we featured the MINI Cooper Service Manual by Bentley Publishers.  That book was very thick and very detailed.

Today we have the Haynes Owners Workshop Manual for the MINI by Randall Martynn.  Although this book is in hardcover, the 143 pages are printed on almost newspaper-like paper with only black and white photos.

The contents include:

  • LIVING WITH YOUR MINI: Roadside Repairs, Weekly Checks, Lubricants and Fluids, and Tyre Pressures
  • MAINTENANCE
  • REPAIRS & OVERHAUL: Engine and Associated Systems, Transmission, Brakes and Suspension, Body Equipment, and Wiring Diagrams
  • REFERENCE: Index

Randall, Martynn
Owners Workshop Manual for the MINI: July 2001 to 2005 (Y to 05 Reg) Petrol
Yeovil: Haynes Publishing, 2005
143 p.
ISBN-10: 1844252736, ISBN-13: 978-1844252732

collectible of the day: MINI 50 Years book

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MINI 50 Years book
MINI 50 Years by Rob Golding is an interesting little book with a clever hardcover case.  The bright yellow cover has a magnetic closure and is opened by lifting the bonnet section (to uncover the MINI engine) and then the main cover to uncover the glossy softcover book inside.

Published in 2007, the fifty years covered in this book stretch from the concept in 1956 through the MINI models of 2006 (rather than the usual 1969-2009 celebration from the original launch).

After an introduction titled “Mini Trinity: Classic, Current, and Future” the chapters are:

  1. Issigonis starts work
  2. BL to BMW
  3. Making It
  4. Cooper’s the Name. Speed Is the Game
  5. The Man Behind the Brand
  6. The Man Behind the Style
  7. Hello again, Sir. Now What?
  8. Mini and the Coachbuilding Tradition
  9. Get Involved: A Guide to Learning More and Seeing Other Dimensions of the Mini Tradition
  10. The Men from the MINIstry in Munich
  11. What’s Next?
  12. What’s New?

Golding, Rob
MINI 50 Years
St. Paul, MN: Motorbooks, 2007.
176 p.
ISBN-10: 0760326274, ISBN-13: 978-0760326275

MINI 50 Years book page 7

MINI 40 years book page 12

collectible of the day: MINI Cooper and MINI Cooper ‘S’ book

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MINI Cooper and MINI Cooper 'S' book
MINI Cooper and MINI Cooper ‘S’ is an unusual “book”. On the bright yellow cover it states “THIS BOOK CONTAINS ROAD TESTS AND FEATURES ON ALL MINI COOPER MODELS”.  Despite the MINI on the cover, the first third of the book actually contains articles on the classic Mini.

Published by Unique Motor Books, this soft-cover book has 72 photocopied pages and is really a compilation of old articles from the UK magazines “Autocar”, “Autocourse”, and “Sporting Motorist” published between 1963 and 2002.

This book is only recommended if you are a serious Mini or MINI book collector.

MINI Cooper and MINI Cooper ‘S’
Unique
72 p.
ISBN-10: 1841554952.

collectible of the day: MINI book

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MINI book
Titled simply MINI, this book by Patrick C. Paternie is another early book covering the new MINI.  Much like Graham Robson’s New MINI book, Paternie’s 96 page softcover book covers the history of the classic Mini and the development of the new MINI by Rover and BMW.

Chapters include:

  1. A Mini History: Britain’s Best
  2. Developing and Designing the New MINI: The Mini Becomes the MINI
  3. MINI Mechanicals: Under the Skin
  4. MINI Manufacturing: Making History in a Historic Plant
  5. Marketing the MINI: Icons, Cults, and Guerrillas
  6. Driving the MINI: New Versus Old
  7. What’s Next? MINIs of the Future

Paternie, Patrick C.
MINI
Motorbooks International, 2002
96 p.
ISBN-10: 0760311579, ISBN-13: 978-0760311578

MINI book page 10

MINI book page 52

collectible of the day: The Little Book of MINI

This entry was posted in books collectibles and tagged classic Mini history on by .

The Little Book of MINI (50th Anniversary Edition)The Little Book of MINI (cover version 2)The Little Book of MINI (cover version 1)
The Little Book of MINI by Brian Laban is little, measuring just six inches by six inches, but covers the history of the Mini as well as the MINI. Contents include:

  • Introduction
  • The Seeds
  • The Alternatives
  • The Man behind the Mini
  • The Solution
  • Onto the Road
  • Acceptance
  • Minis with More
  • Enter the Cooper
  • Do It Yourself
  • The Wilder Bunch
  • Rallying Round
  • On the Road Again
  • Into the Future
  • An End and a Beginning
  • Ideas into Reality
  • Top Twenty Mini Models

Originally published in 2005, the hardcover book was reissued in 2009 as the 50th Anniversary Edition.

The Little Book of MINI by Brian Laban
Green Umbrella Publishing, 2005
128 p.
ISBN-10: 1905009224, ISBN-13: 978-1905009220

The Little Book of MINI by Brian Laban
Green Umbrella Publishing, 2005
128 p.
ISBN-10: 1905009232, ISBN-13: 978-1905009237

The Little Book of MINI: 50th Anniversary Edition by Brian Laban
Green Umbrella Publishing, 2005
128 p.
ISBN-10: 1906635749, ISBN-13: 978-1906635749

collectible of the day: New MINI book

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New MINI (2nd Edition) bookNew MINI book
One of the first books to be published about the new MINI was this one: New MINI by Graham Robson from 2002.  The book covers the beginnings of the MINI from the BMW takeover of Rover, early concepts like the Spiritual and ACV30, initial marketing, moving to Plant Oxford, and the launch in 2001.

In 2005, a second edition was published with sixteen addition pages of updates including the 2005 model refresh, the MINI One D, and the MINI Convertible.

Robson, Graham
New MINI
Yeovil: Haynes Publishing, 2002
144 p.
ISBN-10: 1859608744, ISBN-13: 978-1859608746

Robson, Graham
New MINI (2nd Edition)
Yeovil: Haynes Publishing, 2005
160 p.
ISBN-10: 1844251357, ISBN-13: 978-1844251353

collectible of the day: MISSION MINI book

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MISSION MINI
MISSION MINI was a worldwide contest organized by MINI and held in Barcelona in November 2003.  Twenty-one teams competed to track down “stolen” artwork by artist Peter Halley.  The crime’s story and characters were set up in a short book MISSION MINI by award-winning crime writer Val McDermid.  This 52 page book was available in several languages including English, French, and German.

Download MISSION MINI in German.

collectible of the day: MINI Cooper Service Manual

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MINI Cooper Service Manual 2007MINI Cooper Service Manual 2004Published in 2004, the original MINI Cooper Service Manual by Bentley Publishers covered the first generation, pre-revised MINI Cooper and MINI Cooper S from 2002, 2003, and 2004.  This large and thick paperback book consisted of 800 pages of information for do-it-yourself repairs.  When published it had a cover price of $99.95.

In 2007, a new version appeared which covered the final two years of the first-generation MINI, including the MINI Convertible.  This edition expanded to 1,084 pages and cover price of $119.95.

MINI Cooper Service Manual: 2002, 2003, 2004 MINI Cooper, MINI Cooper S
Bentley Publishers, 2004
800 p.
ISBN-10: 0837610680, ISBN-13: 978-0837610689

MINI Cooper Service Manual: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 MINI Cooper, MINI Cooper S, Convertible
Bentley Publishers, 2007
1,084 p.
ISBN-10: 0837615119, ISBN-13: 978-0837615110

collectible of the day: vol.2 MINI

This entry was posted in books collectibles and tagged Japan on by .

?????? ??????vol.2?MINI
Most books about the MINI come from the US, UK, and Germany, the three largest markets for the MINI.  Japan is an important market for the MINI, just as it was for the classic Mini.  In 2002, this small book called ?????? ????? vol.2 MINI written by ???? ????(Koichi Inouye) was published.

Written entirely in Japanese (except for the model names), the 167 page glossy book begins with a chapter on the MINI One, Cooper, and Cooper S models.  Almost all of the rest of the book covers the history, models, and special editions of the classic Mini.  Appendices include sales figures, specifications, and diagrams of MINI and Mini models.

Buy this book at Amazon.jp (ISBN-10: 4584162441, ISBN-13: 978-4584162446).