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Avenue of the Giants Weekend Run - Sat. March 23, 2024

Saturday will be a very full day of cruising from Novato up through the Avenue of the Giants and ending at Eel River Brewing in Fortuna. Sun...

MINI Launches The Coupe In Leiper's Fork, TN


The Tennessean reports that MINI introduced its 2012 MINI Coupe in Leiper's Fork, TN, more known for the horse whisperer than automobiles, at a local establishment, Puckett's Grocery, where the automobile press came to see and ride in the vehicle.  The location was chosen for its good local twity roads for test drives for the journalists. According to the article,
Mini Cooper automobiles were lined up outside Leiper’s Creek Gallery like fine pieces of art. Puckett’s Grocery’s “patio” dining area (once part of the parking lot) was host to the funky Hog Slop String Band playing vintage American roots music, cloggers were clogging in Hee Haw-esque outfits, and local horseman J.R. Root, with his 10-gallon cowboy hat and signature handlebar mustache, rode up on a horse.

And then the 2012 Mini Coupes started rolling in, piloted by automotive journalists from across the United States and Canada in Mini Cooper’s official launch of the snazzy new two-seat coupe.

The only Mini Coupe launch in calendar year 2011 had journalists from an array of publications, websites and TV stations settling in at Puckett’s Grocery for a buffet of barbecue and all the fixin’s, after having spent three hours on Middle Tennessee roads testing the spiffy coupe that tops out at 140 miles per hour.

And according to Yvonne Malmgren with the Mini USA communications team, it was Puckett’s barbecue that made it all happen.

“We were looking at two cities for this launch: Nashville and Seattle. Our logistics team came to Nashville first and ended up concluding there was no reason to visit Seattle,” she said as she stood in Puckett’s parking lot, surveying the scene.