Mein MINI heißt Parzival, Der Rote Ritter!

So I have read that there are these rules for owning a MINI that I will get to in a bit but it also seems that everyone is required to name their MINIs. Given my MINI's unique striping, I have only seen one other MINI with the same striping and that vehicle is in Germany, and the fact that it's made by Bayerische Motor Werke or BMW for those of you that don't speak German, I thought it fitting to name my MINI, Parzival (Percival in English), Der Rote Ritter (The Red Knight). This was one of my favorite books that I read while I was living in Austria back in the mid 1980s.

Introducing my MINI Parzival, Der Rote Ritter

Bringing home the MINI

It took some time to buy my MINI but with keys in hand I got in and fired it up. The first thing I did was pair my phone with the car but to my disappointment I found out that the Bluetooth only worked for the phone and not the music.

My first mod, sort of

Before picking up my MINI, I spent the coming week researching everything that I could about adapting my new car to my lifestyle. I needed racks for my ski box and a bike rack. I found a Facebook Group dedicated MINIs in my State called the Nutmeg Miniacs and they provided quite a bit of helpful information and suggestions. One of which was where to find roof racks for the car.

My new 2014 MINI Countryman All4 S

I had to get another car because my daughter wrecked hers and I couldn't find a suitable replacement for her with money that the insurance company was planning on giving us so I started looking for a vehicle for myself. With the insurance money and some other savings I wanted to spend less than $20,000 and get some sort of all wheel drive wagon. If I could find a manual transmission, that would be awesome but equally important was great gas mileage and low enough to fit in the garage with my Thule box attached.