After a fantastic 3 hour tour of the MINI Factory… a 3 hour tour… We saw so many really cool things (I’m not at a liberty to discuss) From assembly to paint, to how they test MINIs over bumps, and in rain, and sleet and snow and dark of night.  We did get these black jackets that say MINI UNITED on the right side and have a MINI logo on the left.  I think partially this was a good PR piece, but also it helped identify us, and any thing that we were wearing covered in case it was loose and could get stuck in machinery.  They are definitely something you wear only at the factory or at a MINI event- I don’t see myself wearing it out in public on a daily basis.  For those who were wondering about a gift shop-  I had people ask.  There was no gift shop, no grill badges for sale… I even asked someone in the “T-Building” who dutifully got on a cell phone and called people.  Nothing.  If they had anything to sell at the factory it had all been moved to MINI United.  This was something I noticed my last trip to London (when Harry Potter was at its zenith in popularity)  in the US we sell anything and everything.  You visit a street corner and someone is selling a t-shirt that says “I stood at the corner of 12th & Main”  Here, where they have opportunity to sell you things, they don’t-  I was thinking about King’s Cross Station.  If Harry Potter had been set in the US, the station that everyone left for Hogwarts would have a Kodak Photo Spot, gift shop, and a small cafe selling overpriced soft drinks.  King’s Cross was just that, a train station- not even one note that it had been featured in an extremely popular book series.  The same for the MINI factory.  It’s a factory, why have a gift shop?  So I think the jackets were a way to make those who wanted something that you can only get at the factory happy-  they can head home and show off to their MINI friends… I know that’s what I’m going to do 😀