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Man criticized for filming rather than helping road rage victim

A man from Cheshire in England was criticized on social media after he filmed a road rage brawl and provided color commentary for it instead of helping the victim. According to the Daily Mail, Alec Wall was traveling through Cheshire when he came upon a strange scene. A red Mini was stopped at a light, and standing next to it in traffic was a woman in a white dress. As Wall watched, the woman lunged for the Mini's driver's door, wrenched it open, and began fighting with the woman behind the wheel. While the women fought, Wall pulled out his phone and started recording. "Road Rage!" he shouted as he filmed. Apparently finding the situation extremely funny, Wall continued to film, giggling all the while and providing commentary on the scuffle. "Oh my God, actual road in a rage!" he shouted. Once he returned home, Wall uploaded his video to a Facebook page called Idiot UK Drivers Exposed where it racked up nearly 90,000 likes. Not everyone found it as funny as Wall did, however. Comments began piling up chastising Wall for his flip attitude and his failure to intervene in the fight. "How about instead of laughing and screaming 'road rage' like a moron you do something productive like get out of your car and try to defuse the situation? Use some intelligence..." said one commenter. "I really have failed to see what the camera man is laughing at," said another. "It looks to me like someone being seriously assaulted. Why is that funny?" There is no report on the cause of the incident, or how it ended. Related Video: News Source: The Daily Mail Auto News Weird Car News MINI road rage fight

500-hp Acura V6 turns this classic 1974 Mini into a mid-engined sleeper

Originally designed on a napkin, the world-famous Mini launched by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) in 1959 was envisioned as a cheap, practical city car for families on a budget. Now, 61 years later, it's a sought-after classic that many aftermarket companies hail as the ideal foundation on which to build their wildest dreams. Gildred Racing thought further out of the box than most by turning a Mini into a mid-engined, 500-horsepower sleeper. Starting with a 1974 model, the California-based firm removed the original four-cylinder engine (and the four-speed manual transmission bolted right under it, where you'd normally expect to find the oil sump) and completely stripped the interior. Only the front seats ended up going back in; the space occupied by the tiny rear bench is now home to a 3.2-liter V6 that started life under the hood of an Acura CL Type S from the early 2000s. It's mounted transversely, and it spins the rear wheels via a six-speed manual transmission. Acura quoted the six's output at 260 horsepower, which would be a healthy upgrade for the little Brit, but Gildred tuned it to 500 horses and 383 pound-feet of torque by making a long list of modifications (including, significantly, adding a supercharger). That's a 466-horse increase compared to a stock 1974 Mini 850, so the scope of chassis upgrades is long. It includes bigger brakes made by Wilwood, and a fully redesigned suspension. And, although packaging a V6 in a small, front-wheel drive car like the Mini was as challenging as it sounds, Gildred pulled it off admirably. The engine bay is now home to the fuel tank and the radiator, while opening the trunk reveals a huge exhaust. The trade-off, of course, is that there's no longer a trunk, but it's a sacrifice we'd happily make. Performance specifications haven't been released yet. Gildred simply said its 1,400-pound Super Cooper is "quite impressive," which we believe. The original wasn't; it took 34 seconds to reach 62 mph from a stop. Gildred also made several changes in the name of modernity. It added a 9.7-inch iPad where you'd expect to find a touchscreen for the infotainment system in a modern car, an Alpine sound system, a push-button ignition, power locks and windows, LED headlights, plus automatic A/C. We imagine the whole cabin gets hot when the V6 works up a sweat. The passengers sit on leather- and suede-upholstered Recaro bucket seats that are heated and cooled.

Mini Cooper Convertible Interior Review | Dissecting the oddball

Stepping inside any Mini product is going to throw you for a minute if you haven’t been in one before. ItÂ’s a combination of the odd proportions, weird sightlines and exceedingly quirky design for just about everything inside the cabin. This strangeness, of course, applies to the 2022 Mini Cooper Convertible, which is the subject of this review. Arguably, the Convertible is even weirder than the regular Hardtop, both of which were updated for 2022. It features a tailgate as a rear loading mechanism and a soft top that folds like an accordion on top of said tailgate, remaining out in the open and visible no matter its position — thereÂ’s simply no room for Mini to stow it out of sight in a trunk cubby hole. That gives the Mini Convertible an odd look with the top down, and due to the top having to rest on top of the tailgate, it also blocks the driverÂ’s view rearward. You can still see super-tall trucks in the rearview mirror, but putting the top down makes you largely reliant on the side mirrors to see whatÂ’s coming up behind you. To mitigate that, thereÂ’s a middle ground of top deployment that simply rolls the top part of the way back, effectively creating a roof-width sunroof. Those are all rather odd quirks, but our favorite convertible Mini quirk of old is nowhere to be found in the latest car: the Openometer. This little feature was a gauge that simply kept track of how long you spent driving around with the top down. ItÂ’s hard to think of a feature that is any more “Mini” than that one, which makes us all the more sad that the gauge no longer exists to shame those who donÂ’t drop the power-folding roof. Looking past the weirdness, thereÂ’s a regular car interior here that straddles the line between a premium and non-premium car. The $40,350 price of our Mini Cooper S tester signals that this is positioned as a small and sporty premium car, and there are some genuinely luxurious touches. The Chesterfield Brown leather seats with white piping and pretty quilting sure do scream luxury, while all of the weighty switches and nicely-damped buttons signal the same. The above said, the standard Mini interior is all leatherette, full of cheap-looking shiny plastic trim and is really slacking when it comes to many features weÂ’d expect would come standard. For example, a base Mini Cooper S Convertible at $28,750 doesnÂ’t have heated seats, proximity entry, auto climate control or an auto-dimming mirror.