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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Indulge/  Back to the future with the new Mini Cooper
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Back to the future with the new Mini Cooper

The 2015 Mini Cooper D isn’t the original, but it is very, very good (and too rich for our taste)

The new Mini Cooper not what one would call “Mini”; it is as big as the average small hatchback. (The new Mini Cooper not what one would call “Mini”; it is as big as the average small hatchback.)Premium
The new Mini Cooper not what one would call “Mini”; it is as big as the average small hatchback.
(The new Mini Cooper not what one would call “Mini”; it is as big as the average small hatchback.)

The 2015 calendar sent out by Mini highlights the fact that 2015 and 1959 share the same dates. “The New Mini, The New Original" essentially highlights how the brand-new third-generation New Mini, made by the good folk at BMW, albeit in Oxford, England, harks back to the old Austin Mini. In essence, the calendar is part of a brand-building exercise, building the most crucial aspect for a brand—heritage.

Now this new car is not what one would call “Mini"; it is as big as the average small hatchback. Having been driven around in a 1970s Mini back in 1981 in England, when I was a wee lad of three, I figured that speaking with the poor doctoral student who owned that particular car would be a good idea. That particular student happens to be my father, now older, wiser and wider than back then.

While the first-generation New Mini felt like a modern version of the old car, the second and third generations have built on the first and, like nearly other new-generation model that hits the road, are longer, wider and heavier, and are more like an evolution of the first generation launched in 2000.

For someone who has not seen the inside of the new iteration of the car—my old man—front seat space was impressive. The rest of the car, much less comfortable. Two adults can clamber into the rear seats, unlike in the original Mini, in which adult and rear seat were mutually incompatible terms.

Access to the back seats in this three-door variant is through the front, and could look a bit comical on the porch of a five-star hotel, a place that is the natural habitat of such a car. But that is probably because we as Indians are not used to three-door cars.

Regular boot space, much larger than in the previous generations, is large enough for a cabin-size suitcase and an airbag. Even with the rear seats folder down, this is not a long-distance cruiser. This is the definition of an urban car.

The Cooper D variant that I drove has an ex-showroom price of 31.85 lakh. This is primarily because the car is brought in as a full import. However, the issue is not the initial sticker price, it is the options list—so comprehensive that even the press fleet cars, which are usually kitted with the works, did not have all the options.

Optioning the car with Bluetooth controls, the interesting heads-up display, the extremely bright Bi-Xenon LED lights, the dual sunroof, the Argyll-inspired upholstery and so on—to add a respectable amount of kit—brings the price tag to at least 40 lakh. It would not be presumptuous to guess that a poor doctoral student would not be able to afford one of these, even second hand.

However, there is very little car for the money. Make no mistake, this is a very funky car—with the LED ring around the central console, the big round speedometer on the steering rack (one that moves with the steering), the superb switchgear and start-stop switch. There are issues with the inside; the shiny switchgear reflects on the small rear-view mirror, so you find yourself using the large side-view mirror a lot more. Also, the New Mini feels just like a small BMW.

This is a front-wheel-drive car based on the same platform as BMW’s new 2 Series, and the New Mini shares BMW’s colours on the instrument panel, those shades of orange at night, the whites, blues and greens on clearly an iDrive infotainment system.

But one advantage of Bavarian technology is that you can push the car to do incredible things, and the small diesel engine under the hood is a hoot to drive.

The New Mini fits into the Indian government’s excise category of a small car—with a 1.5 litre diesel engine pumping out 114 horsepower—but it does not look like any other small car on the road. You’ll get noticed driving around in one of these, but people would rather expect to see one of the Bollywood Chopra cousins in it instead of a 30-something bearded man.

In Delhi, there is a term “tashan" that does not translate perfectly into English, but can be construed to mean “cool, with attitude". The Mini is a tashan car.

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Published: 27 Feb 2015, 06:04 PM IST
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