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Jamaican bobsled team pushes a Mini around town to keep Olympic dream alive

PETERBOROUGH, England — The Jamaican bobsleigh team is used to training without snow, but the coronavirus lockdown has seen its male athletes resort to pushing a car around the streets of an English city to stay in shape, with an eye on Olympic qualification. Some residents of Peterborough have offered their help to Shanwayne Stephens and Nimroy Turgott as they push a Mini down the road, before realizing it is part of a new training regime to work around the closure of gyms in England. "We had to come up with our own ways of replicating the sort of pushing we need to do. So that's why we thought: why not go out and push the car?" Stephens, 29, told Reuters. "We do get some funny looks. We've had people run over, thinking the car's broken down, trying to help us bump-start the car. When we tell them we're the Jamaica bobsleigh team, the direction is totally different, and they're very excited." The couple said they had been inspired by the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics men's bobsleigh team, immortalized in the 1993 film "Cool Runnings." But they said they aimed to qualify for the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022 and then outperform the 1988 team, who did not officially finish the four-man bob competition after crashing. "Those guys set a legacy, and a movie came out of it. For me personally, I want to surpass that level, and even go beyond that," Turgott, 27, said. Turgott, who normally lives in Jamaica, has been staying with Stephens since January, and the pair had always planned to do summer training in Britain, albeit in gyms rather than on roads. "If you're able to do the same sort of training without the same equipment, then you should be able to achieve more with the right equipment," he said. The pair are focused on qualifying for Beijing 2022. While the woman's team competed for the first time in 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the men's team failed to qualify. "The last Olympics, we missed it by one slot. And now we are using that experience as our motivation moving forward," Turgott said.   Weird Car News MINI

Mini teases third-gen hatch to debut next week

All it takes is a small spark to set off a fire. Just look at what has happened since BMW brought back the Mini in the early 2000s. What started with a hatchback has since spawned more bodystyles than we care to count and almost as many imitators. The second generation followed in 2007, and now Mini is preparing to launch the third.
The new Mini is scheduled to debut a week from now on November 18 at the Oxford plant in England, just days before the LA Auto Show and Tokyo Motor Show kick off and on the birthday of the original's designer Sir Alec Issigonis.
The third generation of the popular retro hatchback is expected to closely follow the lead set by the Mini Vision concept revealed a few months ago, but then we already knew that, having seen numerous undisguised photos of the new car in action. Still, the half-minute teaser video embedded below does a decent job of drumming up some enthusiasm, so if you're enamored of the Anglo-Saxon retromobile, head on down to check it out.

2022 Mini JCW Hardtop Anniversary Edition gets British Racing Green, retro Cooper badging

Say a cheery hello to the 2022 Mini JCW Hardtop Anniversary Edition. This little Mini is here to honor 60 years of Cooper racing, as the first Mini with a "Cooper" badge on it went racing in 1961. Thankfully, it’s exclusively painted in British Racing Green. Mini says this JCW Hardtop will also feature white bonnet stripes with red outlines, a white roof and white mirror caps. In a way, it looks like a Christmas car with all of the JCWÂ’s standard red accents. The colors are supposedly derived from Cooper Car Company design motifs, and we canÂ’t deny that it looks good. YouÂ’ll notice the number 74 is plastered across both the hood and doors of the Anniversary Edition, as the first Mini Cooper to ever race was given the number 74. YouÂ’ll also notice the Cooper Car Company logo on the carÂ’s side scuttles and side sills to denote it as the Anniversary car. Inside, Mini honors the three generations of Cooper with the three signatures of those who worked closely with Mini etched into the cockpit fascia: John Cooper, John Michael Cooper, and Charlie Cooper. The steering wheel has a retro "Cooper" logo in the bottom spoke. Feature-wise, it automatically includes a panoramic moonroof and touchscreen navigation.  “John Cooper kicked off 60 years of performance innovation with the original Mini Cooper, and the Anniversary Edition honors the Cooper legacy that helped define MiniÂ’s performance pedigree over the last six decades,” said Patrick McKenna, head of marketing product and strategy for Mini USA. Mini says it will be selling this Anniversary Edition “in limited numbers,” so we donÂ’t expect to see a bunch of them. If you want one, the starting price is $40,750, including destination fee. TheyÂ’re available to order from dealers now. Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.