First of all, a little background into the Madonna Mini Cooper. When in UK Madonna has often been seen driving about in Her very own Mini Cooper, the BMW version, not an old banger! There has been many pictures of Madonna zooming about in the Mini so I guess the desition to use a BMW Mini Cooper in the ill-fated American Life video was partly Madonnas, and maybe a little to do with BMW?
To promote the albums release, Warners commissioned 506 Corgi Mini Coopers (model #86503) to be customised with American Life livery on the outer card box! These were usually put into a plastic googie bag and given out this way!
The regular original Corgi Mini Cooper model car has been out since about 2001 and can be bought quite easily for less than a tenner (£10). But try getting a camouflage Madonna Mini Cooper for less than a grand (£1000)!
The black mini coopers all come with custom Corgi Box with American Life livery in the form of a large sticker! Each comes with a unique numbered certificate. These include the wording [number] out of 506 on the certificate and are all from the initial batch of 506 although some certificate numbers go higher than 506!.
Funnily enough, the Mini Coopers which although limited to just 506 come in a range of numbers well into the 600's! This is because certain numbers were either not manufactured or were kept back from be given away? This could mean that there are more than 506 in existance and someone somewhere may have access to the missing numbers? Also the non black mini coopers came with low numbers so these numbers could not then be used for the black ones.
As well as the regular mini coopers in black, Code3Models were commissioned to produce a further 100 promotional-only BLACK mini coopers. The promotional only mini cooper is pictured below and has no livery added to the box! Thes also come with different different certificate which does not give rererence to 506. It simply states: Limited Edition BMW Mini and the number! Likewise these all start with higer numbers than 506 because they were manufactured separately.
Code3Models also produced a small number of customised Corgi Mini Coopers (model #86503) in camouflage & possibly in red?. Initially a very small number of RED Madonna Mini Coopers, possibly as little as 24 were produced for promotional purposes only? These shold be numbered 001 to 024 and if genuine are rare!
I know of red with number 007(?) to 017 so can assume that the lower numbers 001 to 024 were indeed used for the RED minis. Recently, Phil B from here in UK mentioned that He owned a RED 268, so either the lower numbers theory is incorrect or this particular RED mini has wrong certificate or is maybe a fake?!
If you own or have pictures of the RED mini coopers please tell me the certificate wording as this may help with numbers manufactured!
I have been told however that some RED minis don't have the certificates and also that some have been sold with similar certificate wording as the camo ones, i.e. "BMW Mini Red _ _ of 24" ???
Apparently two people own a RED number 022 so maybe one is a fake or both? It's best to only buy these from a source that is known to be reliable. If you know of fakes tell me please. I have seen dodgy yellow mini coopers with madonna image on but they were openly sold as copies on Ebay!
There is a chance that the RED mini coopers are all fakes as even the code3models website states nothing about these and instead only mentions the existance of the blacks and camo ones? I will add more details on possible FAKE red mini coopers shortly after I talk with the original manufactures!
The camouflage Corgi Mini Coopers are extremely rare and only 20 are known to exist according to the code3models website. These are similar to the red ones but obviously camourflage! I know of numbers 002 to 009 in camourflage and the certificate has the following wording: "BMW Mini Camouflage _ _ of 20". If anyone has or knows of one please let me know its certificate number.
Ill start listing the numbers of the mini coopers that exist here. This will help create an idea of the quantity that are in existance. Use the form above to add yours here as the list only started June 2006.
This is the official red and black Tshirts. All other colours of so called UK promo T's being sold currently on the net may be bootlegs so be careful! Both T shirts pictured are 100% genuine and officially manufactured for Warners UK. The red T-shirt is amazing quality, and the black is a little thinner but still fairly good quality.