ONE THING LED to another at the recent MiniInternational Party. The bash, at Habitu the Pier, at Ocean Terminal, last month drew 500 of Hong Kong's brightest young things to celebrate the current Hong Kong issue of the MiniInternational quarterly that's read in 20 countries by 'an international and trend-conscious elite'.
Socialites had just sashayed into a very Mini Hong Kong night of hot dancing and body tattooing to the funky music of DJ Joel Lai, when the lights went out and the music hushed. At this stage at car launches, you expect a video of the model of the day tearing around a track, while someone from the factory drones performance figures from the press pack.
Instead, organisers revealed the Mini XXL, the strangest car you've ever seen, surrounded by hotties in bikinis frolicking in the car's rose petal-covered jacuzzi on stage, while over-eager onlookers were doused in champagne.
This Mini XXL is hardly adorable. A petrol-fuelled mutant, it's a rolling Frankenstein. Stretchier than a 16-seater minibus and a seemingly unmanoeuvrable 6.3 metres long, it has four doors, six wheels on three axles - and a fake wiper on the rear window.
But I really wanted to drive this thing, and tried my luck with the local BMW people, who kindly obliged.
The XXL was transformed, for an unknown price, by limousine converters Ultra in Los Angeles, which means the driver's post is standard left-hooker Mini Cooper S. All the controls are familiar, but you get an eye-widening lesson in perspective as you glance at the side mirrors. You have to forget all the standard mirror, signal and manoeuvre procedures you learned in Wong Chuk Hang, and rely on shock and awe to rewrite Kowloon's driving manners.