9.Individualists Unite! MINI United – Meeting Place of the Worldwide MINI Community.

MINI is celebrating a great anniversary – with enthusiasts from all over the world attending this great event: the MINI United Festival will be held on the Silverstone Race Track in Great Britian from 22–24 May, an anniversary party for all fans of the brand and its products. Guests will enjoy a highly entertaining mix of lifestyle party and music festival, a show programme and motorsport action.

Most of the guests will be coming in their own cars – in many cases covering hundreds of kilometres in the process. This alone will make the car parks around the Festival Grounds a truly unique exhibition area for custom- designed cars, at the same time offering an interesting overview of the 50-year model history of the classic Mini and the MINI.

This anniversary event in the home country of the MINI is the third International Fan Meeting held under the title MINI United. The overwhelming response to the previous meetings was attributable not only to the attractive programme of festival events, but also to the unique enthusiasm fans of the MINI express in their car.

The owner of a MINI is a true individualist showing his or her personal style through the unique design, features and equipment of his car. At the same time MINI owners have many interests in common they express through their unusually active style of communication, as well as their passion for technology, motorsport, lifestyle, and design.

All this comes out very clearly in a most lively club scene, where MINI enthusiasts have got together for common activities in all parts of the world. It is therefore fair to say that the international MINI Community is an unprecedented phenomenon in the world of the automobile.

From regular meetings all the way to an online community: MINI fans are networked the world over.

An active and truly versatile fan community all around the classic Mini was established in Great Britain, the home country of the classic Mini, way back in the 1960s. Right from the start, fans expressed their common interest in the car and the brand by exchanging knowledge and experience all about the Mini and its technical features.

Due to the charming character of this small compact car, owners of a classic Mini strongly identified right from the start with both their car and the brand, sharing this enthusiasm in joint drive-aways and regular MINI meetings, with clubs originally organised on a local basis spreading wider and wider to bring together large regions.

A dynamic club scene also developed quite early on in Germany, gaining additional momentum through the re-launch of the brand and the introduction of the MINI. In the meantime more than 6,000 members are organised throughout Germany in more than 100 classic Mini communities and more than 50 MINI Clubs. Through their wide range of activities, these enthusiasts act as authentic ambassadors of the brand and competent partners for new fans of both the classic Mini and the MINI.

The Community became increasingly international with the general spread of modern means of communication. Upon the introduction of the MINI into the market in 2001, the brand was positioned with the same standard philosophy and spirit for the first time worldwide in all relevant markets. Above all, use of the internet had enhanced the options to interact across national borders and continents.

In Germany alone the MINI Online Community has more than 10,000 members who, through the world wide web, also maintain active contacts with other, similar communities all over the globe.

MINI enthusiasts meet regularly – online and in the street.

The MINISPACE.com website has become an interactive meeting place for particularly creative drivers of the MINI. This online platform brings together people, events, and projects from all over the world.

The website introduced in 2005 as part of the "Creative Use of Space" campaign and providing news, information and statements in several languages including German, serves to initiate and accompany competitions, events, and joint activities.

The guiding motive for MINISPACE.com is to use limited space as creatively as possible. Indeed, this follows the initial philosophy of Mini constructor Sir Alec Issigonis who, creating the Mini many years ago, became the first engineer to build the maximum car on minimum space.

MINISPACE.com conveys this concept to urban projects, using creativity and interaction in even the smallest context to offer maximum fun, lifestyle and freedom for new ideas on both a public and private level. Through MINISPACE.com a worldwide Community is able to participate in these projects, with each member contributing his or her personal input and gaining new ideas for his own activities.

The shared ideas of a creative community also serve to optimise the online sites of MINISPACE.com, using minimum space for maximum impact. All background designs, photos and graphics come from users of the platform who also discuss design and photographic creations in MINISPACE.com blogs or exchange opinions and news through the MINISPACE.com Twitter Service.

As in the past, real-life meetings which, thanks to the use of many communication channels and the support of MINI have taken on impressive dimensions, are naturally still among the highlights of all activities. In 2005, for example, MINI Germany, together with the national classic Mini and MINI Clubs, organised the first national meeting in Germany for fans of the brand. Back then more than 2,500 participants travelled to the National Meeting, heading for the Loreley Plateau on the River Rhine, where they enjoyed a highly entertaining programme with MINI Driver Training, a Design Workshop, meetings with Mike Cooper and rally legend Rauno Aaltonen, as well as the presentation of new versions of the MINI.

A second meeting at the Hildesheim Aerodrome in 2008 proved even more successful, at least in terms of participation, with twice as many MINI enthusiasts from all over Germany attending the event.

The national and international activities in the British club scene are even more spectacular. In 1999, for example, more than 50,000 visitors attended the International Meeting in Goodwood celebrating the 40th birthday of the brand. In 2007 269 cars driving through Blackpool formed the longest MINI convoy the world has ever seen. Indeed, this unique parade was promptly entered in the Guinness Book of Records, breaking the former record set up by the MINI Club in Vancouver, Canada, when 195 cars had formed a similar convoy.

"Friends, Festival, CHALLENGE": MINI United thrills visitors from all over the world.

The International MINI United Festival has been organised since 2005, supplementing individual market activities in a large number of countries. At the first MINI United Festival in Misano on the Italian Adriatic coast some 6,000 participants from more than 40 countries met to enjoy a great time, more than 1,900 models of the classic Mini and the MINI highlighting the streets all around the race track in Misano.

The sporting highlight, of course, was the World Finals of the MINI CHALLENGE Clubsport series.

Among the participants were eighty British fans of the brand who, travelling to Italy together, enjoyed the MINI United Festival as a wonderful stopover on the way. The longest journey to Misano was covered by a visitor from Moscow, driving some 3,660 kilometres or 2,269 miles in his MINI in five one-day stages.

In 2007 the second MINI United Festival attracted more than 8,000 MINI fans to the Dutch seaside resort of Zandvoort near Amsterdam, the race track serving again to hold two races in the MINI CHALLENGE. And the number of cars representing the brand on the roads around the race track was once again even greater, with more than 3,000 classic Minis and MINIs meeting in Zandvoort.

Now, again two years later, the starter signal for two races in the MINI CHALLENGE, for a wonderful party in that typical MINI style, and for the world's largest anniversary event of the brand will soon be heard on the legendary Silverstone Race Track in Great Britain. Music acts and stunt shows will create a wonderful atmosphere and there will even be a Kids' Area for fans of the MINI not yet holding a driver's licence.

Apart from the current MINI CHALLENGE racing cars, historical racing versions will also be battling it out on the track, the Mini Seven Racing Club entering a fleet of no less than 50 classic Mini racing models.