By Christopher A. Sawyer
The Virtual Driver

(August 23, 2015) I had one of the original BMW Mini Coopers, which I bought in 2003. It was Indi Blue Metallic with a white roof wheels and mirror caps, and had the panoramic moonroof, Sport suspension, and a few other goodies. It cost less than $17,000, and replaced an Acura 2.2 CL.

The Acura had been the perfect conveyance for my then job at a local PR agency where my main client (as far as I was concerned) was Lotus Cars USA. It was entry-level reliable luxury and — as a coupe — sporty and inconvenient enough to say that, I was on the way up and, no, you and your staff couldn’t ride with me to the meeting.



The Mini purchase came about after I drove the car on the initial press launch in and around San Francisco. Somewhere up in the hills, I was accelerating up a grade expecting the road to turn left, when it suddenly darted right and plunged downhill. It came as a complete surprise as the topography had suggested otherwise. Still under acceleration, the Mini dove for the apex, scrubbed off a bit of speed, ran a little wide, but thrust itself through the corner — all while imparting a seductive sense of mischievousness.

It was the personality trait that sold me on the car then and there. That and my driving partner turning to men wide-eyed and saying: “Turn around! Let’s do that again!”

Over the years my Mini and I traveled many miles and had many adventures. Unfortunately, not all of them were good. It sheared a wheel bolt, resulting in a new hub and a $535 bill. The drain tubes for the moonroof worked loose and dumped water into the headliner in the rain. It rode horribly because BMW decided to switch at the last minute to run-flat tires. The interior plastics were hard and sizzled as they rubbed together, and the transmission needed a sixth gear. On top of that, it got C-student fuel mileage. And I loved it.

As it passed its fifth birthday and neared its sixth, I decided to lease a VW Golf GTI. It wouldn’t be long before more things went wrong with the car, and — no matter how much I loved its driving dynamics and mischievous personality — it was time to move on. I still miss that car.

Over the years, the Mini has changed, and changed a lot. It has grown. The styling has been revised (and not for the better), the powertrains replaced (hooray!), and the interior materials made from softer stuff than stone. It kept some of the mischievousness, but lost a bit of the spark. And those looks! You begin to understand why there are so few renowned German designers when you see what they did to that cute little car. It’s like they dressed it up in Hugo Boss bling without any sense of irony. They actually thought it should look that way.

I’ve often wanted to ask Frank Stephenson what he thought of what happened to his design and what he would have done differently, but I didn’t want to make him cry. This iteration might just make him weep.

I’ve driven both the Countryman and the overstyled Coupe, and found them appealing. And now… and now there’s a four-door in the drive that is nothing less than logically illogical. The two extra doors make tons of sense, even though the rear seats are not inhabitable by normal-sized humans. Young families unable to swing the monthly payment on a Countryman or Clubman wagon need the extra ports. It is the only way they can tether/untether child seats or get the kids seated correctly without resorting to Olympic championship-grade gymnastics. Plus, they have the option of engaging a forward slot on the rear seat back to place it more upright and increase cargo capacity as they do.

The center speedometer — which no one paid attention to, preferring to use the digital readout in the tachometer — is now the infotainment screen. Speedometer and tachometer are twinned on the steering column, and a head-up display rises from the depths of the instrument panel whenever the ignition is switched on. I like that, though the display shouldn’t retract, and it’s redundant. It’s so un-Mini. Even the shapes are familiar, though the materials used have improved considerably since 2003. Also, the ride is better, and the car is quieter. And I hate it.

Pedestrian crash legislation forced BMW to raise the hood line, and this raised the shoulder line, cutting the size of the widow openings. The hood is taller; it no longer slopes away. The sides are higher, making you feel as though you are in a small tank. In the back of your mind you see Üter from The Simpsons, the chubby foreign exchange student who eats chocolate to excess and wears lederhosen.

Like the first edition, matte black surrounds the wheels, but this accent is ladled on like the chocolate ring around his mouth. Below the gaping grille sit intakes for the radiator and front brakes. They are packaged in a squat rectangle below the grille, and look to be an afterthought. In back, the taillights are enormous, and appear to be modeled after the eyes of something found at Area 51. If that’s not enough, the gas cap is a chromed plastic circle inside concentric circles, and looks like a thermos top from the 1950s shoved in a hole. (The 2003 model had a body-color gas door elegantly integrated into the body.)

Then there’s the interior styling, which has descended into parody. The front seats are multi-adjustable and supremely comfortable, but the riot of shapes, textures, switches, and toys makes you want to tear your eyes from their sockets. About the only bit of tech that works from an appearance and function standpoint is the gear lever for the six-speed automatic transmission. The shift legend on its upper surface lights up to show you which gear you have engaged, and is surrounded by a neatly stitched leather cover.

Below that is a bezel with a toggle that allows you to switch from Normal to Sport or to Green as your mood changes. Okay, this switch works well, is well placed, etc., but it’s what happens next that makes you wonder how many opiates the design and engineering teams ingested before setting pen to paper.

Toggle the ring to the left, and you enter Sport mode. Suddenly, the colors around the outer rim of the dinner plate-sized infotainment bezel change to red, and the words “Let’s Motor Hard!” appear on the screen. (In Normal mode you get “Let’s Motor!” on startup.) The throttle is crisper, the steering tighter, and the Mini feels more like the car it used to be, not the car it has become. Toggle the switch the other way however, and “Let’s MINImalize” comes up with the green color highlight, along with a side view of the car.

This leads you to a “Green Coach” display, and a vine that grows or shrinks with your mileage. This Stalinist Al Gore needling (a redundancy, I know) will cause you to see just how far you can make the vine grow, but soon something happens. Disappointed by the lethargic performance, you throw the switch back the other way as the little voice in your head screams: “Drive the bloody thing! It’s a Mini!”

Yes it is. However, it’s like those families with German roots that emigrated to Britain. They may both have the last name of Becker, but one is named Wolfgang, and the other Roger. In its current incarnation, say hello to Wolfgang.

The Virtual Driver