Originally Posted by OCBen

The largest MINI Cooper forum out there that I've found so far is called North American Motoring. They use a forum software very similar to Rennlist's and others' that I've come across. The really neat thing about it is that the entire site is essentially devoted to just 2 models, the base and the S, with the exception of a small forum dedicated to the classic vintage MINI. It would be the equivalent of having the entire site of Rennlist devoted to the 997 and the 997S. It's actually a pretty cool site. I've been a member for a little over a week now, primarily to find out if I should make some changes to my order and to learn as much as I can about the car just as I did when I first signed up here.

Get this, they have a special forum at the very top of the list just for newbies called First Gear, where newbies ask basic questions or just take the opportunity to introduce themselves to the NAM membership.

Here's something that's also really cool. You know how here in Rennlist they automatically assign you a classification based on your number of posts such as "New User" and the ubiquitous "Addict"? Well over there you start out with "Neutral" for your 1st nine posts. After your 10th post you are "1st Gear", after your 50th "2nd Gear", and after your 200th "3rd Gear" I believe, and so on with each upshift occurring at longer intervals. I think the final milestone of "6th Gear" is reached at 1000 posts. I'm still in Neutral.

They also have an Off Topic forum as well as a Near Topic for discussing other cars. Oh, and they have a Marketplace forum broken down into categories where anyone can sell and buy MINIs and parts of MINIs. I just bought a brand new set of wheels & tires on Tuesday that came off some local guy's newly delivered car that arrived just the day before (for less than half price) at the Wheels & Tires division of the Marketplace forum. (He had ordered aftermarket wheels with tires and had taken off the OEMs as soon as he got the car home.) These wheels are only available on the S model but will fit the base Cooper and are the cool looking 8 fat spoke 17" wheels known as the S-Lites.

So yes, Jeff, I'm splitting time between the two for now.