TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND MILES By Jamie Ipsen

Neil Evans sits across the table from me at his ambiance charged brew pub, The Albany Pump Station. We’re here to celebrate his 200,000 mile relationship with his MINI Cooper S. You don’t just drive 200,000 miles in a MINI, you experience them, all of them. “How many zeros is that?” I ask him. He simply grins.

After a lot of investigative questions about his car and those miles I begin to realize Neil and his MINI are indistinguishable. I’ve heard, ‘We are what we drive’ but in Neil’s case it’s, ‘We drive what we are’.

In 2004 Neil was looking for a car with great gas mileage, with enough room to transport kegs and was fun to drive. He had a long daily commute and lots of beer deliveries to make. A test drive in a “justa MINI” left him very interested, but at the suggestion of the salesperson, a test . . . → Read More: Two-hundred-thousand