RE: Time For Tea: Mini does a backflip

[k-ink]

[balls-out]

Rawwr said:

sgrimshaw said:

What's under the bonnet of that thing?

The engine.

I'd guess no. Suspect this is mid-engine jobby?

[James1972]

X5TUU said:

LMAO ... quote of the year so far lol

Pretty impressive and agreed at the technical difficulty of actually pulling it off

Great answer - BMW diesel in the Paris Dakar ones isn't it

[PtheP]

Hate the car .... but top marks for the stunt!

[arkenphel]

Awesome stunt, whatever the car brand.

This anti-Mini thing is getting bloody annoying though.

[MrKipling43]

ukaskew said:

I hate to be 'that guy', but how much Mini is there in this thing? It looks like a space-frame silhouette, so a long way off even a WRC (which at least shares a reasonable amount with a real car)

WRC shares the shape with a real car. Nothing more.

[M666 EVO]

Coolest thing I have seen all week

[Amirhussain]

Reminds me of this, without the back flip though;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6nJola1Ei8

[Barry Ashcroft]

Very impressive

[the_kato]

ukaskew said:

I hate to be 'that guy', but how much Mini is there in this thing? It looks like a space-frame silhouette, so a long way off even a WRC (which at least shares a reasonable amount with a real car)

Dakar Mini isn't it?

[mike-r]

SimonV8ster said:

Beefmeister said:

Very impressive, but what happened to them doing this in the dock setting?

http://youtu.be/EM2GPlwseOc

Edited by Beefmeister on Monday 18th February 16:16

Maybe it didn't end too well ?!

I'd imagine it was a 'practice' and the car landed on a giant bouncy castle and they were testing the degree of rotation etc.

[Oddball RS]

Wow glad i watched that!

[soad]

Good effort!

[jbforce10]

Come on, it's no where near as good as The Man With The Golden Gun spiral jump from nearly 40 years ago.

http://youtu.be/trJocyjCBzo

[Clinton Baptiste]

Mmm, maybe "tax the rich " should try this in his Enzo!

[hornet]

How are we defining "car" here, as this has been done previously in an assortment of buggy type vehicles. Still impressive mind you, not going to argue that!

[skyrover]

first mini I've ever seen with two solid axles

[Super Slo Mo]

Turbocharger said:

Ignoring the Mini PR for a moment, that's a very difficult stunt technically. As soon as the front axle leaves the ramp the rear suspension tries to unload which rotates the car nose-downward. To keep it turning backward needs a big rate of rotation on the ramp (which is very curved: check) and a very stiff rear spring rate (probably, hard to tell from the vid).

This is why most cars land nose-first when you jump them - though I've often wondered why Volvo engineered Mrs T's S40 to land tail-first.

Now, I'm more than happy to be corrected here, but I understood that a vehicle's attitude in mid-air had more to do with the inertia of the rotating masses (engine/gearbox/wheels) than the angle of the departure ramp.

In a nutshell, if you reduce engine revs in mid-air (as most people naturally do), the car tries to rotate about the slowing wheels (and engine/gearbox), due to Newton's 3rd law, that being that each action (the slowing of the wheels) has an opposite re-action (the rotation of the car in the opposite direction). So to land a car on its' tail would simply require a bootful of throttle during the flight (damage to transmission etc notwithstanding on landing).

I was also given to believe that moto-x riders use this principle to control their bike's attitude when going over big jumps.

Might all be an urban myth though.

[Vipers]

TBH watched it, thought he must have a death wish, big deal, whats next.

[skyrover]

this was more impressive IMO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCc0MAWL4tY

each wheel probably weighs more than that "mini"