MINI Charges $1,620 for Flag Decals and Calls a Factory Holy

On the window sticker of the MINI Cooper Heritage Edition, where the options are tallied in grey type, sits a charge of $1,620, and it is not for the car. It is for the flag. MINI calls Plant Oxford, where the first Mini was born, not a factory but "the spiritual home of MINI," then sells you that home, itemized.

MINI breaks the home into ten elements: decals for the bonnet, roof and rear, a rear flag badge, caps for the wheels and valve stems, door sills. Inside sit a driver's mat wearing a Union Jack, a passenger's wearing a checkered flag, a key-fob cap, a steering-wheel insert, and a cap for the center-console cubby. Grant Sir Alec Issigonis his original in a breath. This is a birthright sold by the line item, and the clerk who costed a soul onto the window sticker must answer for it.

The joke walks into the driveway. The one flag the buyer paid most for, the circular Union Jack on the driver's mat, he buries under his shoes the instant he sits. He financed a homeland and parked his heels on it. He will never once see it. The valet will.

A $32,800 Cooper S becomes a $39,270 sticker as specced, destination kept apart. Everywhere else the identical car wears the name "Oxford Edition," MINI notes, distinct from the Oxford Edition it already sells here. No neighbor alive can tell which England is parked next door.

So go and find the one flag the buyer paid for and cannot see. Lift the driver mat off the floor of the next Heritage Edition you pass, hold the circular Union Jack to the window, and give it the one honest look its owner never will. Were the flag able to thank you, it would. Then set it down, gently, where his heel lives.