The Opel and the MINIs

Beastmaster.co.uk and its sister site iBeastie.webs.com are small websites designed  and run by ourselves Beastmaster and Peanut to enable us to share some of the adventures and fun we have had with our MINIS, the Pug and now the Opel. In addition we have a small Micro Site, iBeastie's Media World  where we have put together our Magazines, for online reading and download, our Beastcasts and the majority of our Movies all in iPad friendly versions.

From this initial premise we have grown and now look at a broader array of topics all of which are of great interest to us. Motoring, F1, photography, horology and food are the dominant topics and on the more lighthearted front we have Beastcasts!

Motoring is a mish mash of occasional car reviews and motoring news, write ups of car events we have attended and on going features such as our Car of The Week.  Also, we have an ever increasing selection of car videos on the Mini Movies Page. View at your peril because they will make you want a fun car!

F1 is  an update on F1 through the saeson ably backed up by reviews from DriverMan our resident F1 enthusiast.

Photography centres around our Project 365 (a picture a day which builds into a fascinating pictorial diary), our monthly Beastie Photo Competition and occasional blogs on photography related issues or products.

Horology began with My Journey Through Time ( a look at all the watches I have in my collection) and has continued with a Watch Blog reviewing watches that catch my eye and highlighting some watches I don't have but would like!

The Food Bar is managed independently by The Elf, who adds new zest and spice to the world of food.

Our latest feature is  Beastcasts - podcasts only beastier, for when the written word demands the reinforcement of the spoken word and this is a must experience, which we like to think of as "polished cringeworthiness!"

Finally, The Life Blog  is about my fight with, and living with cancer, since  I was diagnosed with bowel cancer in July 2010. Not as heavy as it sounds as we are fighting the battle with smiles!

We are not affiliated with any other companies and any product reviews or product recommendations that we may make from time to time are done from a completely independent standing.

Do have a look around our site - we hope you enjoy it.

Our original car line up when we started this site was CooperBeast (BP500-2) and CheckBeast (BP500-3) which are BMW minis and PugBeast (BP500-1) which is a Peugeot 206cc.   CooperBeast is an October 2002 build Mini Cooper in Chili red with a white roof, which we got from new at the start of November 2002. CheckBeast is an October 2005 build Mini Cooper S special edition called Checkmate, which we got from new at the start of November 2005. It is metallic space blue with a silver roof and bonnet stripes and chequered graphics on each front side panel. CheckBeast is also a fully fledged Works edition complete with the full engine upgrade, Works brakes and Works strutbrace. For good measure it also comes with silver sideskirts to match the roof! PugBeast is an October 2001 Peugeot 206cc se 2.0 litre in cayman green with matching green and black cloth interior.

With time a few changes have been made to the original line up. PugBeast left the fold in the summer of 2007 after 5 years of sterling service, fun and adventure. His life with us has been captured for posterity on the pages of this website. His departure (sad though it was) was to make way for his replacement the Opel GT which after a long delay finally arrived at the end of June 2008. The Phantom  is his name, so called as having to wait so long for him to arrive often he never seemed quite real - but he is real now! He will be honoured to wear the original number of PugBeast  (BP500-1). The Phantom has his own page full of details about him but briefly all the information needed is 0-62mph in 5.7 seconds!

The next change came in August 2008 when we saw the sad departure of CheckBeast our much loved Works Cooper S. This was to make way for ClubBeast (also affectionately known as PepperBeast) our new MINI Clubman S in pepper white with a black roof. A very grown up car, which we have really taken to but which Clarkson regards as the only thing you could give as a gift that is worse than a toilet!  The modding process has already begun on ClubBeast so check him out on his own page. ClubBeast replaces the third car in our line up so adorns the number BP500-3.

The MINI is not just a fun car but a whole social life too, thanks to the mini community, which for us is centred around MINI2.com, Total Mini.com, newminikernow.co.uk , Clubman Register and newminiseverns.com where we have met hundreds of mini enthusiasts and participated in lots of MINI days and MINI runs. For Pug enthusiasts http://www.peugeot206cc.co.uk/ has all the information you could want and for The Opel GT the best site for information is the American forum for his brother the Saturn Sky - http://www.skyroadster.com/.

PugBeast     CooperBeast   CheckBeast   Opel GT   ClubBeast

The Elf - Amelia Turner, wife of Driver Man and daughter of Peanut.

The Elf is an F1 fanatic with her husband and occasional contributor to the site. Amelia is also a devout foodie and enthusiast on all things epicurean, running her own food journal  All About Food

Driver is Carl Turner an F1 and race track fanatic and husband of The Elf ( Amelia, daughter of Peanut) He is an occasional contributor to the site.