Mini Cooper door pulls (R50, R52, R53)

thingiverse

I really like the look and race-feeling doorstraps bring to pretty much any car. And since I own a R53 which have quite a go-kart feeling to it, I thought that doorstraps was the way to go when redoing my door panels. Problem was that all the door pull options I've seen for the first gen Mini Cooper felt overpriced in relation to the value they ad, which is all about looks. The only option which had a price that I felt matched what you're actually getting out of it were the 3D-printed ones. Although for me these weren't an good option either since I didn't feel like spending money on something that I could design and print on my own. Said and done. Took the OEM-handles apart and started working on the design. Eventually coming up with something I was rather pleased with. I always try to design things to look as clean as possible and when it comes to printing I also try to adjust designs to be as easy printable as possible. When it comes to customizing cars I often try to make modifications reversable aswell. The combination of these made me wonder if it was possible to have a cover which didn't use a screw to hold it in place. Something every other kit uses. This is now probably the one thing that separates my design from every other that you'll find available. The covers snap in place and don't have an ugly screw head in the center of it. Overall, I know there's absolutely room for improvement on the parts. Like some areas that could be reinforced to eliminate flex even further. Or that the convexity of the covers could be increased, for the parts to not be able to interfer with eachother at all (which they are now if you pull the straps hard enough). I'm not using my R53 very much at all nowadays but I've tested the parts over the last two summers (approx 4000-5000km driven) and neither me nor my passengers have broken any parts so far. That said, they definitely get the job done even if they're not 110% perfect. I don't take responsibility for parts breaking or if you manage to lock yourself into your car etc.