After a very strong fall, winter, spring and now summer, I realized that our old server had been taking a lot of abuse and was barely keeping up with the traffic that we have been getting over the last few months. So last night at Midnight we went to a fresh, brand new super mega server on a clean T1 line that will make for much faster surfing of our site. Enjoy! This should put an end to some of the sluggishness that even I saw at certain times throughout the day when our site load is especially high….plus I get to host the other 10 or so personal and other experimental sites that I have cooking. Some day I will put together a list of all of them with their intended purpose and domain names, etc….some are just URL’s, while others are sort of designed and populated with various content….

Okay, so every once in a while I get the hankering for some late night music when my kids are asleep and listening to my setup at less than moderate listening levels is just good enough…so, I got my first set of REALLY sweet headphones. In fact, they may be one of the best set of headphones on the planet and boy do they look the business. The AKG 701’s were recommended to me by my neighbor and parter in crime (co-owner of www.ParkAudioLabs.com) and I can’t say enough about them. What do they have to do with MINI’s? Absolutely nothing, aside from the beautiful retro modern design aesthetic and phenomenal performance. Listening to headphones has never been so good.

For those audiophiles out there I happen to be addict and have a constant flow of equipment coming and going in my house and currently have some Martin Logan Vantages powered by Nuforce Ref 9 V2 amps and a Cambridge 740C cd player that I use as a DAC which goes to a Parasound preamp….all the cables are Kimber Hero and Monacle X. The Vantages are on the way out in favor of the new Spire from Martin Logan…..

With our new heat press and sweet ‘neighbor’ connections come a slew of new shirts that are due out in a few days…actually they are done, I just need to do a photo shoot. You see, 2 doors down from Out Motoring world HQ is a company that supports Limited, Victorias Secret, Abercrombie and Fitch, Under Armour, Hollister, etc with nearly all of their hang tags, tshirt transfers, packaging and just about any other printed thing that helps these local companies….did I mention the Subway across the street may as well be a fashion show at lunch? A lot of young hipsters that work for A&F (which is about 3 blocks away) come out to eat and hang out. Even though I am pretty young myself I sometimes feel a bit dopey. So anyways, the owner of this company is a good friend of mine and so I have access to their large format printers that print tshirt transfers by the 10,000. Guess who got 200 sheets (35×28) of custom full color transfers at a very good price? Just wait.

Coming soon are these shirts:

-AlphaMINI which is the alphabet in all caps but when it comes to the “M” and the “N” I snuck in a few “I’s”….pretty cool…AND it will have a childs version as well.

-3 MINI’s is a side view of the sedan, clubman and the convertible in black with a grey outline all stacked up on a nice dark bluish grey shirt

-Full Throttle is a new checkered flag Wings logo with “Outmotoring” in the middle and on the back in red letters with black outline is “Full Throttle. All the Time” on a white t

- Fastest Fun on 4 Wheels is a large Red S with 2 black S shadows behind it and the words “fastest fun on four wheels” below it on a black t. It looks sweet.

-R5? is a white T with a variation of the R5- (enter R50, R52, R56, etc.) grille badge on the left chest with an Out Motoring logo on the right sleeve.

Also there is “enjoy your ride’ shirt  with a simple small checkered flag pattern with the “enjoy your ride” tagline below it along with a Out Motoring logo on the back neck.

Almost all of the shirts have a small tasteful Out Motoring logo on the back neck…don’t worry they are very good looking. That’s the only way I do things.  Keep checking back in the next few days for pics.

A few months back when I started selling the Griots Garage line of car care products I wanted to make a portable kit to keep in the car at all times and while Griots had a few decent bags that were supplied with a few of their cleaning products I decided to make my own. I typically carry some window cleaner, speed shine, microfiber towels, some tire dressing and some vinyl and rubber dressing in a nice Craftsman bag that fits nicely behind the seat. It seems to be perfect for me.

Just a few weeks ago Griots introduced what I think is their best ‘portable’ bare bones car care bag that has a nice list of products included so I decided to add it. I ordered a few to check out and was very impressed by the quality and design of the bag. There are two removable dividers that have tons of little loops to hold smaller items and the outside is lined with a few pouches to keep other stuff while the inside has a nice amount of room to add to what they supply with the kit so you can tweak it to fit your needs. Overall, I am really impressed with this little bag and think it would ideal for just about anyone who wants to keep their MINI looking its best. I usually bust my kit out if I drive to a MINI meet or car show and just need to get some of the travel dust off the car. It’s also great if I find myself waiting to pick up one of the kids or whateve and there’s nothing to do…it’s amazing what you do in about 5 minutes in the school parking lot.

Okay, so here’s the back story on these MINI Cooper Driving Light Brackets. Once upon a time there was a company that made a few MINI accessories in their garage in northern Ohio. One of the products were driving light brackets that were sold in pairs and were very popular because they could be mounted in various locations across the front bumper structure and also allowed 2 vertical mounting locations. After a while the company decided to stop making them and close the business. Throughout this Out Motoring had been selling them and had also been designing a variant that had some design changes that seemed appropriate. When the original design had faded away, I put more effort into making the new design a reality using the production companies we were familiar with using instead of the garage made system as the supplier had used. The new design allows for 3 vertical mounting positions and has a very unique build style that allows a thinner, lighter material to used while offering the same strength. Gott love working with PROe and using CAD data to allow for testing of products before they are even made!

So, finally about 1 month ago I got the revised CAD data completed by a good friend and degreed mechanical engineer who shall remain nameless (but not forgotten). After a series of tweaking and redesigning, etc., the new bracket design was emailed off to a good production shop and 3 weeks later, I was holding the first batch. Although the process of designing and making them is similar to making cookies, you simply cannot eat these, but it is a good feeling to see them sitting in a box fresh from the powder coating facility all nicely wrapped as if each one was some sort of bakers delight.

So, here they are world. Check them out, only this time, they are my design with the Out Motoring brand!

Part of running a small business and being mostly a one man show means I have to wear lots of hats. One of them is the accounting hat which I don’t like to wear. I usually leave it buried deep in some dark closet most of the year and pull it out a few times to work some magic. Each year I have to go through all of the years records and prep them for my accountant whom I have been working with for nearly 9 years. It’s flat out one of the most painful things I have to deal with every year. Here it is, nearly June and I still have not done LAST years taxes. I guess I should pay someone to do it because I just hate it. Lesson learned. Luckily I use digital checks and credit cards for nearly everything related to the business so the paper trail is easy to track at the end of the year.

So, back to the grind I go. All I need to finish my paper trail is my Visa and Mastercard charges for the year and I will be sending this mess of numbers to my accountant in California. What a guy.

We just got back from a great 5 day weekend at the MINI’s on the Dragon gathering near the famous and twisty road that crosses the TN and NC border. On our way into Fontana Village where the event was held we were stopped by flashing lights near a nasty turn where a bike and rider had gone down in a big way. The rider was okay, save a seemingly busted collar bone or something. The bike was basically road debris. Fork broken in two places, chassis all twisted and mangled and enough plastic strewn around the road to cause trouble. We were the first in the lineup and talked with police that were busy keeping the screaming bikes that were buzzing up the mountain road stopped in time to not rear end us. On the other side was a road hazard cleanup truck dealing with oil and gas spills from the wreckage. We were glad to see no one was seriously injured as we learned that just 2 days earlier a biker had a fatal crash as is common in the area.

As we were allowed to move on the mood improved as we saw the dozens of MINI’s that spotted the road and when we finally reached the resort were welcomed by  hundreds of MINI’s parked around the area at the various cabins and houses. We quickly unloaded and setup our display which took about 3 people 4 hours. The next morning we saw a constant stream of MINI owners that seemed to enjoy looking at all the fun stuff we had brought. This year we brought more display fixtures to make room for the new stuff like Piloti Shoes and Griots Garage products which were quite popular. It was nice to see familiar faces and meet some of the people that had been loyal customers over the years as well as many new faces that we are sure will continue to shop with us.

Over the next three days we (my wife Andrea, my father in law Norm and myself) kept the booth rolling. As we were under a larger group tent we did not have to worry about the rain and wind as we had in years past which was a big relief. We also enjoyed “Terry”, the nigh security guy who watched our goods at night so we could relax and not have to break down every night which was a nice surprise. THANKS Mark from NAM and Fontana for arranging this!

The saddest thing of the weekend for me was that my MINI was parked from Wednesday night until Sunday morning when we boxed up everything and drove away! What a shame, to be in one on the nicest parts of the world and have access to some of the best driving roads in the planet. Having our 3 kids there made the evenings less about socializing and more about family, which is good. My wifes mother was in from Knoxville and did a great job at keeping the kids entertained during the days and made some good food so we could relax in the evenings.

All in all it was a great event and we plan on doing it again next year, only we hope to be a few hours closer when we move to Charlotte. The 8-9 hour drive from Columbus Ohio is not that enjoyable….

After way too many months of having the “pull to inflate” stickers on the site WITHOUT a picture I found about 10 minutes when the phone was not ringing to shoot them and add them to the site. Check them out:

and

For some reason, not having a picture had not stopped people from buying it, which is quite odd. Sorry for making everyone wait this long. The good news is that out of the 200 something sold we have NOT had one complaint about the design, scale, color, quality or anything!

Fill those ugly holes in your door panel of your MINI Cooper with these Door Insert Caps in both Union Jack and Checkered flag. Now available at OutMotoring.com.

They are the perfect way to cover up those unsightly holes around the perimeter of your MINI’s oval shaped interior door panel….did I mention they ship for free via USPS?

If you’re in need of a cool keychain for your MINI Cooper Key, check out these new designs that I designed…

This one is called the “punchout“:

and this is called …..you’ll never guess: