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Judith’s dad had recommended that we have a drive up to the Grossglockner, as it’s a magnificent drive with some magnificent views. And there’s a glacier, which is always quite entertaining.
Near the start of the road to the Grossglockner a Mini sporting what appeared to be a whacky paint job drove past us going in the opposite direction. We quickly identified it as being a new model under test - some sort of very large five-door Mini.
A few minutes later, I’d stopped to take a photo of the view and it drove past us again, this time going in the same direction as us. We followed it back to a hotel a couple of miles up the road where there were a whole load of BMWs and Minis in various states of disguise, as well as one of the new hybrid BMW i8s and a couple of what I think were Active Tourers - the new front-wheel-drive BMWs. We also clearly identified the car we’d been following as the new Mini Clubman, which isn’t due to go on sale for another 18 months or so.
If you’re going to go out testing your “secret” new cars, it seems strange that you would choose to test them on a road that’s basically full of tourists with cameras taking pictures of the views. Perhaps these cars are now at a sufficient stage of development that BMW/Mini think a bit of free publicity wouldn’t go amiss?
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