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Emily Bakers R56 Mini Cooper S gets Chunky

Even with the launch of our Gen 3 Mini flares the Gen 2 keep on growing with more cars globally getting the VAD mini treatment, which is a great feeling having all of the global Mini builds tag us as they take shape.

One particular R56 that was in the planning stage and got us really excited was Emily Bakers Cooper S JCW, the colour caught our attention straight away Kite blue, along with Emily's enthusiasm, just seemed to be the perfect owner & car to showcase our product, and she has wasted no time at all hitting the show scene already displaying the build at numerous shows around the UK.

Collection day for Emily Baker's R56 Cooper S wide flared beauty

Emily certainly did her homework, traveling down to our Birmingham fitting centre Dentcraft to check out the flares up close and personal, which she got to do by seeing not one but two R56 Minis that belong to Dave the owner of Dentcraft Birmingham, they were an instant hit and Emily booked her stunner in for surgery.


We kept in contact with Emily whilst she waited patiently for the work to be carried out, getting sneak peaks of her wheel choice and all the plans she had for the car and we must say on collection day the finished results blew us all away, the colour the wheel choice, everything just works in harmony, such a credit to her, the vison she had imprinted was right on the money, we don’t think there is a better colour choice of wheel or design that would suit this build any better, the Rota kyusha, measuring 9x17 with +15 offset for the front & +8 offset for the rear wrapped in 245/40R17 Avon tyres just fill every ounce of space the new wider flares have created, with the Gunmetal centres and gloss back lips look right at home against the Kite Blue Bayswater limited edition paintwork.

We don’t know what is next for Emily’s little beauty, but what we do know is we are on board for the long haul, we hope she spams us forever with this one and as she has her own personal photographer on hand in the form of Boyfriend Matt, owner of Matt Andrews Photography we seem to think the pictures will not be slow coming through.

Photography: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/matt.andrews.photography

One of our favourite builds has always been Geoff Clements of Clements racing, his amazing Pepper pot white JCW, it has all the bells and whistles and its having even more engine performance related goodies added, we were so pleased when Geoff chose to wear our brand of flare to such an incredible Mini, especially with the way it looks, and now with Emily joining the VAD family made us really excited that yet another incredible looking Mini wanted to wear our brand, sorry Geoff your beauty was Numero- uno for a while, but Emily’s little stunner is sharing the honours of the best UK VAD clad Mini, roll on the photography spam.


If you want to follow Emilys Mini journey, her on her Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/emilybbbb




Wide R58 Mini Coupe, Murdered Out

With our Blue R56 Mini Cooper D sold to Dent Craft in Birmingham, we wasted no time at all replacing and we were extremly happy stumbling across a Mini Chassis we have been longing to convert for a while now, the rather epic R58 Coupe with the added bonus of it being the Cooper S version in black with all of the toys to include full black leather interior, this one really is a beauty and one we are happy to have in the stable.


With the car purchased the first thing on the list of things to do was to get rid of the rather terrible red stripes than run down either side of the bonnet as well as the lower full sides of the car including the doors, which makes a huge difference to the look, nothing but a clean fresh black paint, which will look better with what plans we have for this build.

Mini R58 Coupe Cooper S dressed in 25mm & 35mm flares with 9x17, 245/40r17 Wheels & Tyres

The first modification was to hit the chrome work and our boys at 1st Choice Tints give the chrome work a full detailed enhancement programme, to include a huge list of modifications they carry out if you want to tick every box they do, which we did apart from the wrapping service they offer, so let’s look at what is included in the full enhancement pack. The first thing to get done was the windows, with the back screen and rear side windows being hit with their 5% Global QDP tint and the front windows 50% Global QDP which gives the R58 a real menacing look, especially with the full de-chrome which includes belt line, front headlight surrounds, rear taillight surrounds, front grill surround, front wing Cooper S logos and the Mini badges have all been hit with the gloss black, with the front and rear lights, fogs and centre brake light all being smoke tinted for the full murdered out attire.


With the dechrome and tints taken care of it was time to hit the best part of the conversion and the part we have been looking forward to getting on with was fitting our extended arches with our all new ZF1 wheel design that is the exact width and correct offsets, our 25mm & 35mm flares and 9x17 ZF1 Anthracite wheels wrapped in 245/40R17 Hankook tyres, finished off with a coilover susension set up and the finished look is stunning, this really is how all R58 coupes should look.

For any enquiries on this conversion get in touch with us, we offer a drive in drive out fitting and painting service with wheels, tyres, suspension and of course our wonderful extended arches, which transfer the look of any mini.


With the huge sucess of our flares over the last 5 years for the Gen 2 Mini, it seemed like a natural progression to start the Gen 2 arche programe and we are happy to report the product will be available at the end of March 2021 with the order books filling up already, we are also absout to start working with a really cool R61 Paceman coupe 4x4 owner, as we are all excited by those flares come to market, and the base Paceman is already heavily modified sitting on a set of 19" Rotiform wheels and folloing that build we will start work on the Countryman R60 conversion, so our Mini Schedule is pretty much full on for 2021 and we cound not be happier.


MiniFlares.com

Updated: Mar 23, 2021

Our Mini flares have been such a massive success over the last few years, the growth and sales of the “R series flare (Gen 2) has been utterly mind blowing, so much so that it we decided to get Jiggy with the Gen 3 Mini and our all new “F” series Flare is gathering a lot of interest with lauch date looking at the end of March 2021 being the date we start shipping out the Gen 3 product, We didn't think for one minute these fibreglass replacement flares for the Mini brand would be as successful as they have been globally so decided the product needed its own stand-alone website and run as a separate entity within the VAD corporation

R56 Cooper Fitted With Coilover Suspension, 9x17 wheels & 245/40R17 Tyres

This month as well as launching the Gen 3 flares it will also see the Gen 3 F56 hatch demo vehicle being launched and its already starting to look pretty special in its metallic British Racing Green that has been completely de-chromed by the in-house crew 1st Choice Tints , coilover suspenions, whilst sitting on a set of 0.66 3SDM 18” Motorsport wheels finished in matt black, the design really does suit the build.


The flares for the UK market are being offered as supply and fitted product only just to protect the product as they have already had some replica issues, so offereing a fitting service should stop, Dent Craft Birmingham as Well as Mini Flares are the only places in the UK that you buy and have the product fitted, they both offer a wheel, tyre, suspension supply and fit option to, so well worth the discussion.

F56 Mini Cooper Flares

With any wide body or flare you are going to need a wider wheel and tyre set up, which is what you need for this Mini conversion, what makes this conversion more difficult in both the 4 stud R series chassis and the newer 5 stud F series chassis is the offset that is required if you don’t want a 3piece wheel or use any wheel spacers.

It’s been a bit of a journey trying to find a 1 Piece cast cost effective solution as 1 piece none forged 4 or 5 stud low offset wheels do not exist, we found a few designs in Japan Racing line up, but the fact we have to buy from other retailers as well as terrible stock levels on designs we chose and we had fitted yet couldn’t replace damaged wheels due to no stock and no dates for wheels we had fitted previously made us quickly retreat from that brand and quickly back to the drawing board, but luckily 2 forged came to the rescue with the ZF1 that is built as a 1 piece flow form light weight wheel, 9” width and is available in 17” & 18” with our bespoke offsets machined to suit, with other designs happening in the near future, we are only going to be offering a better line up.


Available in standard colours Matt Black, Anthracite, Silver, but also available from our exclusive Speedwells colour collection we have an abundance of colours to include some very bespoke options available on request, as well as the generic Race Gold, Race Bronze & Track White also available from the Mini Flares Colour line up

ZF1 9x17 > 9x18 // 4x100 & 5x112 Custom Offsets

Check out the website and get in touch for all your Mini flare needs, they really do transform the look of the Mini, available for the R55, R56, R57, R58, R59, F56, F57, with the Paceman and Countryman being next on the list of chassis Mini flares will build flares for, with the all new clubman and electric Mini on the future hit list


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 Shropshire
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