Security gaurds at the Luxor Las Vegas casino mistook a lightly camouflaged Mini Countryman prototype for a car bomb Saturday night, shutting down the garage and disrupting a Playboy model's swan song. Exclusive photos of the sad, booted Mini below.
The Mini Countryman S already debuted here in the United States, but engineers are still fine-tuning the vehicles and this one likely came from a bit of hot weather testing in nearby Death Valley. The employees in question were either staying at the Luxor or seeing the final show of Playboy model Angelica Bridges, whose farewell was interreupted by the bomb scare. The cause was apparently their suspicious-looking car, which does have European plates, body cladding, testing equipment and an empty cooler with Arabic writing (it must be a bomb as there's Arabic writing on it!) poking out of it.
We'll let Kww, who took the photos for us and noticed the strange car, explain what happened after police determined the car wasn't a threat.
I was at the Luxor Las Vegas and was parked on the top floor of the main Parking Garage. Went to the minivan to load up and head back home when I found a Mini Cooper Countryman S sitting there! Considering I want this car I felt like I hit the Jackpot (sorry for the pun but seriously)!
The Luxor security folks apparently don't comprehend European plates (Munich, DE right?) and some kind of cooler in the back seat with Arabic writing on it. Anyhow, they felt the need to wheel lock the car and put a note on it waiting for the poor, tired death valley test engineers to return to it. I am assuming death valley testing since the car had water containers in the back seat simulating lots of weight and of course the usual data acquisition equipment/wiring in the car.
A Luxor Security Guard on bike was surprised we were taking photos of it, then later asked if it was our car. I wish! Told him that it belonged to BMW Germany and that they were probably hot weather testing it in Death Valley.
If the team of engineers wasn't supposed to be at the Luxor we'd love to hear them try to explain to their bosses exactly why they were at the casino. As for the bomb scare, we're guessing BMW understands since one of their executives did the same thing earlier this year in New York.
Maybe BMW should just ditch the camo... you know... for safety's sake.
(Hat tip to Kww for the pictures!)