During the ridiculously warm weather we had last new year's eve day, I gave the MINI a much needed wash and decided to finally pull off the factory bonnet stripes. I had been meaning to do this for some time. I was initially just going to replace the stripes with similar stripes only a little bit longer so they wrap around on each end because the factory stripes stop about a quarter of an inch short of each end of the bonnet. Anyway, I thought I should experiment a little and this is what I came up with.

Since I wasn't sure I was going to want to keep the stripes, I used a temporary vinyl I use for mocking up designs. It's not as permanent as the high performance 8-year vinyl I normally use so it's easily removable. I think I like the new stripes. If I decide to make them permanent, I think I'll outline all the white with a dark blue pinstripe to fold in the colors of the Union Jack on the roof. Now I'm left waiting for another warm spell to fiddle with it some more.

Speaking of warm spells, we've been having the exact opposite of that lately. A lot of ice, some snow and a dose of cold is on the menu this week. 50,000 plus people in the KC area lost power Tuesday from ice bringing down powerlines and trees into power lines etc. The picture below is of my neighbor's yard across the street where a fairly good sized tree decided to give out under the weight of the ice. Luckily it fell away from their house.

The MINI is parked safely in the garage and at 16 months old has still yet to be driven in wintry weather. The Scion drives like a champ on snowy streets so why bother. Plus, with the flat I had last week, the MINI is rolling on three factory runflats and one Dunlop performance tire. My flat couldn't be repaired and the only tire available was a $200 Dunlop 9000 Sport. Very nice tire, but I'm not eager to test the performance of the MINI on mismatched tires. My plan is to get new wheels and tires in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned...