MINI auto news

Long Term: 2011 Mini Countryman: January 2012

Literally two days after my last update about our long-term Mini Countryman, I found myself trudging through a snowstorm at 30 miles per hour on Interstate 94 along Michigan's west coast. I guess Mother Nature had heard my cries about not being able to test our Mini in the snow, and decided to reward me with super slippery roads and poor visibility for two and a half hours straight. Lovely.

Mile after mile, the Mini dutifully carried on while I watched large SUVs and a host of mid-size sedans slide off into the ditches on either side of I-94. I've lived in southeast Michigan my entire life, and I know how to drive in the slushy, slick stuff, but there's nothing quite like the combination of all-wheel drive and proper winter tires for times like this - it not only helps with driver confidence, but makes the whole process of safely navigating through a snowstorm much less fatiguing. Mini's All4 all-wheel-drive system made sure power was being sent to exactly which wheels needed it most, and our car's Bridgestone Blizzak WS-70 winter tires provided by the folks at Tire Rack kept the rollers from slipping during acceleration or skidding during braking.

After using the Mini to schlep many an Autoblog staff member to and from various Detroit Auto Show happenings, I handed the Countryman off to executive editor Chris Paukert, who turned it back over praising the All4 system and snow tires' handling on split-mu surfaces - even with the driver's side tires on wet asphalt and the passenger-side wheels trudging through ice and slush, the Mini remained confident and steady despite times when traction coefficients differed at every corner.

The Countryman now resides in Cleveland, Ohio, where it will be under Editor-in-Chief John Neff's care for the next month. We haven't had any snow to speak of since sending the Mini to Ohio, but I'm sure if Neff complains enough, Mother Nature will reward him with a big ol' lake-effect dumping to the Lake Erie coast so he can see just how good our All4/Blizzak combo is.

Keep your eyes locked on the official Autoblog Facebook page for the majority of our updates, as well as the official Autoblog Twitter account (@therealautoblog, look for the #ablongterm hashtag).

Report: Next Mini to get rear-hinged Clubman doors?

Much as we love the Mini Clubman and its rear-hinged, passenger-side door, this would be an incredibly stupid idea. Functionality is one thing, but ruining the design of the fetching Mini Cooper hardtop would be a downright shame.

Nevertheless, Autocar reports that a rear-hinged door could be in store for the next Mini. A recent set of spy shots showed a Cooper hardtop prototype with an unusually short driver door with what appears to be a small suicide door behind it. Our best guess? This could just be Mini playing with door configurations, since the automaker received quite a bit of criticism for the placement of the Clubman's rear door in right-hand-drive markets.

Mini is keen on the rear-hinged door idea, though. Autocar states that the next-generation Clubman is expected to get a door on either side instead of just one, and that rear-hinged doors will be found on the Countryman-based Paceman coupe, as well. Fine by us, but please, leave them off the original hardtop.

Official: Mini changes tracks with Prodrive WRC team

The road taken by Mini to the World Rally Championship has been anything but smooth. After contesting a handful of rallies last season, Mini and Prodrive (the outfit running the team on the manufacturer's behalf) was set to contest the full calendar this year. But then the team failed to register in time, and dumped the promising driver it had plucked from the Intercontinental Rally Challenge, and things did not look good.

Late last week the talk around the motorsport press was that parent company BMW was preparing to pull the plug on the entire program (much as it had with the Sauber team in F1 a few years ago), but while an announcement has been made, it's not nearly as drastic as had been expected.

What Mini has done is downgrade its involvement from full-on works effort (that is, a team fully financed by an automaker) to a works-supported private team. So what does that mean exactly? In practical terms, not very much. Prodrive will continue development of the Mini John Cooper Works WRC car for both the official entry and for additional privateer teams running customer cars in the WRC and other series. And Prodrive seems optimistic that the new arrangement will actually enhance the program, not downgrade it.

What is 100% clear is that BMW wasn't happy with how things were shaping up, so it demanded a change. Just what effect that change will bring, however, seems more confined to the relationship between Mini, Prodrive and the FIA. Follow the jump for the full announcement.

Continue reading Mini changes tracks with Prodrive WRC team

Report: Mini accidentally names deadly European weather front after its cars

The naming of a storm seems innocuous enough. After all, when some sort of weather event - be it a hurricane, tropical storm, blizzard or flood - comes along, we as human beings are going to talk about it, and having a name makes that a much easier process.

So, the marketing folk at Sassenbach, the ad agency used by Mini in its home country, probably thought it would be harmless and fun to buy the naming rights for an upcoming storm in Germany (as an aside... yes, you apparently can buy the naming rights to a storm in Germany!) to get people talking about Mini, even when not directly referencing their cars.

Harmless, though, it was not. As it turned out, Weather System Cooper spread snow, ice and freezing temperatures throughout all of Europe, claiming the lives of at least 100 people and sending thousands to the hospital to be treated for hypothermia and frostbite.

According to BBC News, both Mini and the ad agency have stopped commenting on the apparent flub, having previously stated that they didn't have direct control over which storm front would be named and couldn't know in advance how severe any specific storm may be.

While that's obviously true, we bet Mini and Sassenbach are praying to the god of good weather than Weather System Minnie - they bought the rights two two storms, presumably before the first turned into an unmitigated disaster - brings nothing worse than sunshine, rainbows and unicorns to the woebegone victims of Storm Cooper's swath of destruction.

Official: Mini drums up yet another special edition, the Highgate

We are more used to seeing this in the six-figure realm of the automotive world: a carmaker putting out one special edition after another. But both Mini and UK buyers love their specializations, so Mini has provided another one called the Highgate. It follows the Baker Street and Baywater editions as the new hotness for 2012.

This one will be for the Cooper convertible (Baker Street and Bayswater were for the hardtops). The standard treatment is an Iced Chocolate exterior coat with Truffle stripes on the hood and a Silvertouched Truffle roof, but metallic options in Midnight Black and White Silver are also available.

Insid,e Dark Truffle Lounge Leather seats with blue piping meet a host of standard features such as Mini's cold-weather and Chrome Line Interior packages. It rides on 17-inch Double Cross wheels and gets a range of four engine options from that in the 122-horsepower Cooper to the 143-horsepower motor from the Cooper SD.

Prices start at £21,300 ($33,693 U.S., not that we'd ever get it here) on-the-road for the manual-transmission Cooper Highgate Convertible, to £26,050 ($41,206 U.S.) OTR for the Cooper SD Highgate Convertible with an auto. More information is in the press release after the jump and plenty of eye candy in the gallery of high-res photos.

Continue reading Mini drums up yet another special edition, the Highgate

First Drive: 2012 Mini Cooper S Roadster

For a brand that's only about 11 years old (since its modern rebirth, anyway), Mini is doing quite well for itself. Since the launch of the 2001 Mini Cooper, the BMW-owned automaker has now sold over two million vehicles in 100 markets, and over the course of the past decade, has expanded one front-wheel-drive platform into six models with a grand total of 39 different variants. The fact that Mini has hit the big time is in no way breaking news.

What's really interesting is how each new model continues to be supported and loved by the Mini faithful. Perhaps the most controversial addition came in 2010, when Mini first debuted its bigger, four-door Countryman - the most un-mini Mini. Now, though, it has grown to account for 30 percent of the brand's sales here in the United States, perfectly coexisting with its Hardtop, Convertible and Clubman brethren. Nicely done.

But this story isn't all loveliness and perfection: Enter the Mini Coupe, a car that we can't quite give our seal of approval. It's heavier than the iconic Hardtop, less functional, more expensive and frankly, less attractive. Sure, it stands true to the brand's core values of fun, tossable driving dynamics and cheeky style, but at the end of the day, we don't downright love it like we do the other models.

Now meet the Roadster. Immediate comparisons to the Coupe are indeed warranted (we'll get to that), but if any car in the Mini portfolio should be worried, it's the Convertible. The Roadster is less expensive than the aging Convertible, looks better (arguably) and has a more capacious boot. No, this new Roadster doesn't seat four, but then again, the Convertible doesn't exactly do a fantastic job of that, either. And after driving the new Mini Roadster along the sunny Portuguese coast, our impression is that this sixth Cooper variant isn't so much another niche product for a niche manufacturer, it's instead a better droptop than the current Cooper Convertible.

Continue reading 2012 Mini Cooper S Roadster

Official: Mini claims first international rally win

It may not be a World Rally Championship event, but Mini is celebrating its first win at an international rally (at least its first such win of the modern era).

The event in question was the Qatar International Rally, a fully FIA-sanctioned event that kicks off the 2012 Middle East Rally Championship (MERC). Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari (with his brother Nasser as co-driver) edged out the competition by an impressive margin of 2:24.9 in the Mini Countryman JCW Super Production Car - the same vehicle that Prodrive fields in the WRC but with a smaller wing and restrictor plate, and similar to the X-Raid vehicle that recently won at Dakar.

Victory at the event was particularly meaningful for Prodrive, which got its start at the Qatar International Rally way back in 1984 to kick off the first MERC in the Rothmans Porsche 911 SC RS (pictured in the high-res image gallery below).

Continue reading Mini claims first international rally win

Official: 2012 Mini Roadster priced from $24,350*

Mini has officially announced pricing for the company's new Cooper Roadster. The tiny droptop will carry a base MSRP of $24,350 in the U.S., while the Cooper S Roadster will set you back $27,350. The top-of-the-line John Cooper Works Roadster, meanwhile, will command a sticker of $34,500 (*pricing exclude a $700 destination and handling fee). Should buyers wish to drop an automatic transmission into their Cooper Roadster or Cooper S Roadster, the two-pedal option will cost an additional $1,250, but the John Cooper Works Roadster is only available with a manual gearbox. Mini says 16-inch alloy wheels are standard on the base roadster and its S counterpart, while the topped-out JCW Roadster will roll on flashier 17-inch wheels.

That means the Cooper Roadster requires a $3,450 premium over the base hardtop Coupe, but curiously, it's cheaper than the Cooper Convertible by $600. While the latter doesn't exactly offer palatial amounts of space for rear passengers, it is still considerably more functional than its Cooper Roadster equivalent. We have to wonder if there's enough of a price differential between the two models to keep buyers from skipping the more rakish Roadster for its four-seat counterpart, but either way, we're just pleased it doesn't share the Coupe's awkward backwards-ballcap roofline. Hit the jump for the lengthy press release.

Continue reading 2012 Mini Roadster priced from $24,350*

Report: Mini wants to make JCW its BMW M, bring diesel models Stateside

As far as the Mini lineup goes, the John Cooper Works models sit at the very top of the performance spectrum. But that's not enough for Mini's (relatively) new chief Kay Segler. The German auto exec came to the post from the M division of parent company BMW, and that's what Segler wants for the Mini brand as well.

So what does a further differentiated JCW line mean for the Mini? That's hard to say at this point, beyond marketing, but we could be looking at even more powerful versions than the 208-horsepower, 1.6-liter turbo four currently employed. With the arrival of the JCW Countryman, Mini will have created Works versions of every bodystyle in its considerable portfolio - and it will have a more powerful 223hp mill on its hands, which could find its way into the rumored upcoming Mini GP edition as well.

More exciting JCW models aren't all that Segler has planned for Mini, however. According to Car and Driver, as U.S. demand is growing for for Mini's diesel-powered models already offered in Europe and other markets. While we wouldn't expect an oil-burning Mini to find its way across the Atlantic in this generation of models, once the next series comes along in the next couple of years, a diesel-powered Mini could wind up in American showrooms.

Video: Peter Berg directs Mini Roadster cliffhanger

The Mini Roadster ad campaign is continuing the "Another Day. Another Adventure." campaign begun with the Mini Coupe. The Roadster spots, directed by Peter Berg, started with two well-dressed gents darting through the various avenues of Istanbul. It picks up with them having, somehow, nearly driven off a bridge.

At that point, Mini-type antics take over, and you can watch them in high-def in the video after the jump.

Continue reading Peter Berg directs Mini Roadster cliffhanger