Driving the 2025 Mini Cooper S Convertible

There are folks round you, caught in the identical site visitors, who’re having enjoyable.

A automotive is maybe probably the most emotionally complicated buy most People make. At Kelley Blue Guide, we encourage customers to make cautious and financially clever selections. However it’s simple to miss the truth that deciding which automotive to purchase can add pleasure to your life.

The Mini Cooper Convertible, as an example, prices lower than the typical new automotive and makes a commute or a visit to the shop genuinely enjoyable. It has a playful interface, an adaptable persona filled with quirky temper settings, light-footed dealing with, and provides you the choice of recent air on a day of good climate.

I spent per week driving one round my Washington, D.C.-area house in early fall climate and got here away rejuvenated. Sure, rejuvenated. In site visitors.

Which Trim Degree

Mini, a division of BMW, builds the Cooper Convertible in three grades ranges — base C, sportier S, and high-performance JCW (John Cooper Works). Every grade then has a alternative of three trims — Signature, Signature Plus, and Iconic. Mini loaned me the S mannequin in Iconic.

The S designation gave it a barely extra highly effective engine (201 horsepower, versus 161 hp within the C and 228 within the JCW). The Iconic trim gave it a Harman Kardon encompass sound system, sport seats, and some different goodies.

I’m a fan of base fashions in lots of instances – conserving your cash usually provides extra to your life than a extra elaborate automotive would – however within the case of the Mini, I do suppose the S is the Goldilocks mannequin. JCW Minis are enjoyable, however at fairly a worth premium.

Favourite Characteristic

The Mini Cooper Convertible has a small wheelbase with the wheels pushed almost to the corners of the automotive. That’s a components for taut, sporty dealing with. It makes the Mini enjoyable at secure neighborhood speeds.

In the event you skilled the Mini convertible fashions of the early 2000s, you is likely to be shocked to listen to us say that. When BMW revived the Mini model, its hardtops have been wonderful little go-karts however its convertibles felt looser and fewer responsive. That’s traditionally true of many convertibles as a result of eradicating a inflexible roof makes a automotive’s construction extra versatile. However engineers have stiffened the construction of the present Cooper a lot that, even with the highest down, each flip feels crisp and swift and exact.

What It’s Prefer to Drive

The 201 hp turbocharged 4-cylinder engine within the Mini Cooper S makes it genuinely zippy. A pleasing little turbo growl kicks in when you need to step on it.

Brakes are agency, however not grabby.

However a Mini is all concerning the turns. The Cooper S convertible is among the best-handling automobiles in the marketplace, rivaled solely by the Mazda MX-5 Miata in its worth vary. Throwing it right into a nook is joyful, even at informal speeds. Better of all, dealing with is almost an identical with the highest up or down.

Mini takes drive modes (“expertise modes” in Mini lingo) to extremes, with seven decisions, every with cutesy names. Some appear to largely be aesthetic – Timeless makes the display screen appear to be the gauges of the Nineteen Sixties period Minis. Others change the automotive’s efficiency – Go Kart stiffens steering really feel and ups accelerator sensitivity. As you web page via them, every performs a couple of seconds of a signature tune via the audio system.

Inside Consolation and Expertise

In the event you’re a longtime Mini aficionado, the cabin of the most recent Cooper is probably the most dramatic change you’ll discover.

It’s an impressed interpretation of the inside of the unique Mark I Mini. An enormous spherical touchscreen within the heart is clearly drawn from the unique gauges, however as interactive as any fashionable automotive touchscreen. A lozenge-shaped panel beneath homes HVAC controls and a fake key you flip to begin the automotive. It’s unusual how pleasant turning a secret’s within the period of starter buttons and even sit-to-start automobiles. It feels charming.

Designers made the curious resolution to cowl the dashboard in a textile floor. It’s nice to the contact however I ponder how nicely it holds up through the years, or if it holds onto stains. Lights shine via it in some expertise modes.

There’s no driver’s instrument display screen. However a glass panel unfolds at startup, and a head-up show tasks on it. The velocity is projected onto it in somewhat circle that strikes barely as you progress your head. I might by no means shake the sensation I used to be Luke Skywalker watching the concentrating on laptop.

That’s the sort of playfulness you’re feeling on this automotive.

Limitations

The Mini solely pretends to have a again seat. I imply, there’s one again there. However you wouldn’t wish to ask adults to sit down in it for lengthy.

The convertible high is powered. You push a button to lift and decrease it. However you have to maintain the button down till it completes folding or unfolding, which takes almost 20 seconds. That may sound quick, however odds are there’s no button in your life that you just routinely maintain down for 20 seconds. It’s annoying. Unpowered tops just like the one within the Mazda MX-5 function a lot quicker and offer you one much less half that would break.  

The folded roof additionally blocks a lot of your rear imaginative and prescient in a means that merely doesn’t occur within the Mazda.

Key Concerns

Non-luxury convertibles have almost gone extinct. You may arguably say this competes with topless Ford Mustangs, however the two automobiles are so totally different in spirit that I don’t purchase it. It’s purest competitors is the MX-5, which can even be a contact extra enjoyable to drive, however lacks a rear seat and sits so low that it requires versatile hips to personal.