How it all Began

The Florida Mini Enthusiasts or FLAME was born after a trek to Atlanta to Mini Mania East for a swap meet. We arrived in the dead of night so we decided to crash in the van for about 3 hours. When we emerged from the misty depth of the van in the morning we noticed that we knew most everyone there; they were from Florida.

At that point a bunch of us commented that we could have saved ourselves an 8-hour car ride by having our own swap meets back home. We all drove back, another 8 hours, with loads of great Mini stuff and loads of ideas swimming around.

We already had a pretty good network of Mini people. The local British Car shows were beginning to notice way too many Minis around. They weren't ready to embrace us at that time in the early 90 however.

The Florida Mini Enthusiasts officially held their first Spring Thing in February 1996; there were 19 Minis in attendance. Probably 6 of them belonged to the Priest's. FLAME hosted the 2nd Annual Spring Thing and MME 23 in 1997. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Oh, by the way, at British Car Shows now, there are 2 classes for Mini's/MINIs. We no longer have to share a class with Morris Minors and MG 1100's.

We've come a long way baby!

Save the date - February 20-22, 2009 for Spring Thing 2009 to be held in Orlando - more info to follow

To contact webmaster: mgrick@mgcars.org.uk