Converted Mini the wheel deal for budding DJs

An American friend played in a band he named Shut Up and Drive. Were he to christen the same outfit today, he might call it Boom, Zoom and the Speeding Psychedelic Trippers - after he'd paid an inspirational visit to the Mini showroom in Tsuen Wan.

Without actually reproducing those pharmaceutically assisted journeys of the 1960s, the shiny auto emporium is offering, until Sunday, a unique behind-the-wheel experience that might just eclipse Hong Kong's nightly harbour laser show.

Part of the showroom is given over to a darkened studio, in which stands a Mini Cooper S Cabrio. Around the walls is a rainbow of neon tubes teamed with an array of mirrors and speakers that all generate a sound and light show that would grace party spot Dragon-i.

The source of the spectacle? Well here's the really fun part: the visitor, in the driving seat of the convertible, gets his audio-visual kicks - if not quite on Route 66, because the car doesn't move - from producing the 21st-century equivalent of the mix tape.

By touching two electronic sensors placed either side of the steering wheel, stepping on the accelerator, which controls a third and pushing two red buttons below the gear stick (not ejector-seat controls), the "driver" becomes the conductor of his own orchestra.

While seated at what has now become, in effect, a DJ's mixing booth, he can layer synthesised sounds to create a track, putting down drums with the red buttons, adding guitars via the accelerator and coating it all with a keyboard melody "played" on the steering wheel.