'GET DWARVES AWAY FROM MY CAR' SCREAMS MINI BOSS
There were angry scenes and an embarrassing revelation at a German launch party for the new Mini this week. Sources report that Mini Deutchland boss Helm K=E4se arrived at the function and, on sighting some people sitting near one of the cars on display, immediately became panicked. 'Get those dwarves away from my car' he screamed, before hiding behind a curtain. A fellow manager eventually pointed out that the 'dwarves' were in fact normal-sized people whose appearance had been rendered dwarfish by the distended, cartoon-like design details of BMW's new small car. 'Helm is scared of dwarves,' revealed a Munich insider, 'so his reaction was only natural, in a weird sort of way. I think he was bullied at school or something.' This isn't the first time the Mini's 'looks big but isn't' styling has caused problems. At a UK dealer conference in May this year delegates were ushered into a car park as two examples of the new car were driven in to meet them. Despite the nearby presence of, amongst others, a
7-series, an X5, a 7.5 tonne curtain sided lorry and quite a big Portacabin, the Mini appeared, at a distance, bigger than all of them leading some delegates to wail 'It's going to crush us!' and run back inside, crying. 'This is becoming a bit of a problem,' said an anonymous BMW designer. 'For all our UK-made car projects we decided to work in a classically British mix of imperial and metric measurements to capture that elusive combination of inept working practise and low quality for which your motor industry is known. I think we may have got inches and centimetres muddled up.' Those living close to Land Rover's development centre in Warwickshire, where another BMW-developed vehicle, the new Range Rover, is undergoing final testing, have confirmed this theory. 'It's enormous,' confirmed local resident Clive Rancid, 'last week a pre-production prototype ran over my house.'5 THINGS THAT LOOK SMALLER THAN THE NEW MINI BUT AREN'T
1: Ford Focus2: Mercedes E class
3: Cadillac Elderado4: Magic Johnson
5: Shropshire