In the end the Mini vs Porsche challenge finally took place and naturally the Mini S got her small trunk kicked by the Porsche 911.

The mini (excuse the pun) circuit that Mini created at Road Atlanta was designed to enhance Mini’s handling and minimize the German supercar power, but it didn’t exactly pan out the way Mini wanted, infact they got beat by two seconds and you know that in any type of racing getting beat by two seconds is a life time.

Mini commented the two seconds difference with each second worth $38,000 but with all the hype surrounding this challenge, Mini certainly got their return in pubblicity.

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The Mini vs Porsche challenge is getting more entertaining by the day with this Rocky spoof Mini video. The Mini and Porsche take to training for the future challenge (which Porsche hasn’t actually accepted yet), with a video in 1980’s style complete with soundtrack and hair-dos. The Mini obviously takes the school of hard knocks approach to its training regime, while the Porsche gets the full treatment in a high-tech lab. This is great stuff from Mini USA and whether Porsche decides to accept the challenge, we couldn’t really care. We’re loving this video as it is (besides as they probably had already made it, they may as well release it). Below is the original trailer to the film Rocky so you can see where the inspiration came from.

Continue reading: Mini vs Porsche video: Rocky take-off with hard core training regime

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We had said that Porsche wouldn’t have the last word in the Mini vs Porsche racing saga and so we’re not surprised to see another tongue-in-cheek video from Jim McDowell. Who knows where the inspiration for this race came from, but whatever the case, Mini is doing a nice little free marketing campaign for itself.

The Mini boss had originally challenged Porsche to a race, only to be turned down with a haughty but polite ‘no’, tinged with a little irony itself. I’m not sure that Detlef Von Platen is a man to be pressured into accepting the race, but again, we get the feeling this isn’t the last episode in the saga. Watch the video for the t-shirts if nothing else.

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Porsche has declined the Mini challenge to a race between the two brands, ignoring the guantlet thrown in a public letter and pointing Mini in the direction of an ad it made a few years ago about Porsche racing. We all know that Porsche is a serious racing company and we didn’t need them to confirm that for us. In fact, we would still like to have seen the challenge go ahead, although we suspect Porsche, lacking in a sense of humour, has called the Mini bluff and done just what it wasn’t expected to have done.

In the letter, Porsche executive Detlev Von Platen, says:

While your challenge seems like a fun and lighthearted campaign, we’ll stick to racing the way we have over the decades. We welcome you at Sebring, Le Mans, Daytona or any other sanctioned race where there is more at stake than T-shirts and valet parking spaces.

We think they probably haven’t had the last say, but walking away from the challenge now certainly saves them any embarrassment they may have been faced with, if that was the purpose in the first place. The video above shows the Porsche ‘racing not posing’ ad referred to in the letter, and after the jump you’ll find the original Mini video invitation.

Continue reading: Porsche says no to Mini challenge

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