Liking minis to the max

Chuck Heleker, a tall 53-year-old with thinning gray hair and a youthful face, is a Seattle accountant and computer expert. But his true specialty, the subject that probably takes up more space in his hard drive than any other, is the British automobile known as the Mini.

How else can you explain his personal collection of 15 of the gnat-size cars with 10-inch wheels, Britain's best-selling and best-loved automobile of all time? Or the several hundred miniature Mini models he owns, the floor-to-ceiling shelves of parts that take up an entire long wall of his Green Lake garage, the videos and books and frequent e-mail correspondences with other Mini fans around the globe?

Heleker also belongs to the Seattle Area Mini Owners Association (SAMOA), one of the largest of the nation's 20 or so Mini clubs. Its members are nearly as devoted to Minis as Heleker is, though most Northwest drivers would have a hard time understanding the car's appeal. More and more Americans prefer ever-bulkier SUVs and trucks; almost half of all auto sales in 1998 were either light trucks, minivans or SUVs, and 2.8 million SUVs alone were bought that year.

"Minis are out of phase with what America wants," Heleker observed. "The bigger, the better: That's the American way of looking at things."

But in other parts of the world, the opposite is true. For the 40th-anniversary celebration of the Mini last August in England, Heleker shipped two of his cars there for the event, at a cost of about $6,000. He and several thousand other enthusiasts from dozens of countries converged on Silverstone Race Track outside London, where more than 15,000 Minis paraded and raced around the track or were on display, and 50 Mini owners clubs staged exhibits.

In England, Heleker displayed his Mini camper conversion, the Wild Goose, and a Jeep-like vehicle called a Mini Moke. These models were so rare, even in their home country, that lots of people came up to ask questions about the cute, boxy little cars.

But back in the U.S., where Heleker has driven, collected, tinkered with and raced Minis for 30 years, the questions he fields are of a different type. When he mentions that he owns a Mini, a typical response might be "a mini what?"

"It's strange," he says, "that one of the most popular cars ever built - 5 million have been sold around the world - is unknown in this country."

Strange, perhaps, but not hard to understand, given that just 10,000 Minis were sold in the U.S., and only from 1961 to 1968. As Minis rolled off the same British assembly line through the '70s, '80s and '90s, none were shipped to the U.S. because of the cost of conforming to this country's strict safety and air- quality standards, and because the demand for micro-cars was low.

There's a rumor, however, that a new version of the venerable car, dubbed the Millennium Mini, might make its way to the U.S. in a few years, and many local Mini fans are buzzing with guarded anticipation.

In America, Minis proved most popular among an iconoclastic group of auto fanatics, like Heleker, who marveled at the way the cars, with only minuscule engines, could outperform such American muscle cars as Camaros and Mustangs. As long as a race involved tight, twisting turns, especially on wet surfaces or unpaved roads, Minis were giant-killers, winning dozens of international road rallies during the 1960s, and even today notching victories in vintage car races around the country.

The car's racing prowess, its unabashed cuteness and its David-vs.-Goliath symbolism have given the Mini a nearly legendary cult status among the few Americans who have owned them. But what a driver notices first about it, the quality that makes up for all the car's deficiencies - unreliability, interior noise, lack of amenities - is the way it hugs the road.

"Almost anyone who's ridden in or driven a Mini will say it goes around corners like it's on rails," declares Kelley Mascher, president of SAMOA.

"It's like a go-kart," adds Heleker. "It's incredible how well they handle. It's what draws people to them."

Another quality that attracts Mini drivers, Heleker points out, is that "you're part of what you're driving. You're not isolated from your vehicle as you are in an American car."

Several design innovations combined to make the Mini so fun to drive. Wheels were positioned at the corners of the body, so there was little overhanging weight to cause the car to spin out. Traction was enhanced by the front-wheel-drive layout. The car's small size (10 feet long by 4 feet wide), light weight and low center of gravity contributed to its ability to change directions like a cougar chasing a hare.

To the uninitiated, the Mini's small stature makes it seem more toy than transportation. Todd Fitch of SeaTac is a 35-year-old Kenworth truck builder who owns a 1979 Mini 1000 imported from Canada. Because he's 5 feet 11 inches and weighs about 250 pounds, he says that "people are surprised to see me getting out of such a small car. But what they don't realize is that it's actually got lots of room inside."

Mascher tells of an uncle visiting from Nebraska who, after sitting in a Mini, confessed, "This thing has got more room than the Chrysler we drove out here in."

According to Mascher, the Mini's interior roominess was achieved when Alec Issigonis, the car's chief designer, set up four chairs in his office, one pair comfortably spaced in front of the other, and ordered his engineers to come up with an equivalent amount of room inside the Mini. The result was an incredibly small car on the outside that still had ample room for a driver, three passengers and a few (small) pieces of luggage.

The so-called Millennium Mini, longer and heavier than its 1960s-era predecessor, will have many creature comforts lacking in the older cars. The cheap price, too, will be missing. While the first Mini to reach the U.S., in 1960, cost less ($1,295) than the inexpensive VW Beetle ($1,695), the price of the new version is predicted to range from $16,000 to $25,000, about the same as the new Beetle.

But whether the U.S. will get any Minis at all remains in the hands of BMW, the German carmaker that owns the Mini marque.

"Currently there are no vehicles the size of the Mini plying the roads of the U.S.," says Jack Pitney, head of corporate communications for the BMW Group. "If we brought it back to the U.S., not only would we be introducing a new brand, we'd be introducing a new product and a new concept. We have to ask, is it financially viable for the company?"

Most Seattle Mini owners agree that while they'd love to see Minis here again, chances are slim the car would be even remotely as successful as, say, Volkswagen's re-introduction of the Beetle.

"No, it's not likely to me," admits Mascher, who works as an engineer at the hearing-research lab at Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center. "There was a huge number of people in the U.S. who had a great deal of nostalgia for the Beetle. There aren't nearly as many people who even remember what a Mini is, much less have warm and fuzzy feelings for them."

If the new car didn't show up in the U.S., it probably wouldn't bother American Mini enthusiasts, who see the new version as a completely different car than the original.

Heleker, who drove Minis exclusively for almost 25 years, said he would have to evaluate the new Mini "like any other car" before deciding if it was right for him. He now spends more time behind the wheel of his Subaru sports car than he does in any of his stable of Minis, which sit in one of three garages or in his driveway at home, under protective tarps.

He bought the Subaru in 1992, shortly after he totaled a classic 1967 Austin Mini Cooper S in a wreck. But he didn't switch because he felt Minis were dangerous or noisy or uncomfortable.

"It was a wake-up call," he reflects now about the accident in his Mini. "I realized they made only 25,000 of them (Austin Mini Cooper S), and I just destroyed one. If I was going to wreck something, I didn't want to wreck something I was so fond of."