August 18, 2006:

32 GP owners in Monterey!

Todays GP delivery event at Laguna Seca was fabulous! By about 9:30 this morning there were people hovering around the hotel – but the coach did not leave till 11am! Soon enough though, we arrived and saw in the distance a cluster of GPs, arranged in a diagonal pattern of increasing roof number:

I quickly found my GP#0203:

confirmed also with my name on a card on the dash and GPMINI license plates!

Immediately I noticed things I had not known about the GP – little extra surprises like the black handle on the trunk, and the repeated GP roof number (”0203/2000″) on the dash:

After looking over the cars for a while, MINI USA insisted we eat lunch, which was excellent; there was a speech from Tom Purves and finally they began to hand out GP keys, in numeric order – so the first USA GP owner is Bruce Mueller with GP#0016:

More owners were called up – it took a while because some owners needed guidance about MINI features like toggle switches, having never before driven a MINI (!) – but finally it was time for GP#0203, and Jim McDowell gave us the keys:

After that, we spent ages admiring the car, then headed over to watch some classic race cars on the track, before finally heading out for a few miles of driving to Big Sur and back (see GBMINI.net)