Thanks for all the compliments everyone! Sorry I haven't had a chance to reply to this thread. We've been busy these last couple of days doing some mods to the car!

We had thought about getting a manual when we looked at them but if I went that route, I probably would have looked for one of the 2006 special limited edition GP models which is a really sweet looking Mini. However, I do a lot of city driving and shifting gears constantly is not fun to me. If it was mostly highway driving, then it wouldn't be a big deal but stop-and-go traffic sucks.

Let me just say though, if you've never driven a Mini that's a turbo automatic, you don't know just how MUCH fun it really is...yes, even for an automatic! Like I said, I'm not a big fan of manual transmissions just because of the inconvenience but Sean drove a lot of manual cars and he even said the other day that it's not necessary to have manual on THIS car!

Anyways, I just wanted to post some updated photos to show off some of the mods we did over the last couple of days. We put the new wheels on and just finished lowering the car late last night. I believe it was a 1.5" drop and I think it looks GREAT now! While we were dropping the car, we also put in the new rear sway bar (upgraded to a 19mm).

We got the black out beltline kit in so we went ahead and did that as well. Sean put in the new intake which is awesome and gives the car a great sound. The blowoff is really cool. We're going to order a catback exhaust system to replace the current one and I'm trying to convince Sean to let me get a big brake kit as well. I would love to get some Brembos or Baers or something like that. We may just go with Wilwoods because they're less expensive.

I'm still waiting on my carbon fiber spoiler, painted fenders, and a few other things to black out the chrome parts, etc. I love the look the car is coming around to and can't wait until I can get the painted fenders on it! We're going to get the windows tinted on Monday so I'll take some new photos after that!

Let me know what you think!

Thanks,
Celia

Here are some photos of the car before we lowered it...




And here are a few photos of it from today after it was lowered and had a fresh wash too!