My husband and I have an '04 Cooper S and the interior does seem to have taken a turn for the cheap in the newer models. Shame.

I would love to have a Mini Cooper.

But it was "too extreme." Stuck with a Hyundai Sonata 08. Which is cool I guess.

I'd prefer a diesel Rabbit. If they made one. Again. (please oh please)

Get your hands on an E30 BMW M3 coupe from the 80s. Amazingly fun to drive and they keep on running.

I know I'm apparently the only person in America who feels this way, but god is that car ugly.

Is it true what I've heard? The Mini is an expensive car to keep repaired?

@A.W.E.S.O.M.-O: Concur, along with the Cabrio, it's the perfect little girlie car.

@howie_in_az: Well the "M3" version are acutally pricey to maintain. Fun and Fast, but pricey. Teh regular 325 of the same body style are cheap, very durable, and almost as much fun. Mine's got 220,000 on it and I'm just breaking it in.

@A.W.E.S.O.M.-O: lol. No, I agree. I mean it was cute in the Italian Job, but I would never buy one.

Cheap plastic aside, if I could bring home one of these mini coopers, my fiance would never leave me.

I've been wanting one for forever.

Oh yeah, and Mini Cooper = two words.

When a nearby dealership finally got in a Cooper S, I went and drove it. It was like driving a go-cart. Very stiff. Fun for around town I guess but I can't imagine spending hours on the highway in that thing.

I agree the interior all looked nice from the pictures but in person it was so cheap looking and feeling. It was kind of like some kind of plastic display at a store, like a fake computer at a furniture store or something. Like it was a cheap, thin, fake plastic picture of a real car.

The salesman didn't understand what happened when I shifted without using the clutch. He thought I broke something. I assured him it was perfectly normal for the car to be able to do that, but after the drive he sent it to the shop to be checked out. Moron.

smart! smart! smart!

You can park sideways in a parallel parking spot with that thing. May not be legal, but you can. And there's just something catchy about driving a clown car (even if early reports said the driving experience leaves much to be desired).

EDIT: After rereading that, I admit now that'd I'd probably go with a Honda Fit.

The Mini Cooper are great cars, you should buy one for each foot! I would never buy such a hideous car because of the very reason stated as a "mixed blessing". Same goes for the Mazda Miata.

Nice car but for me the biggest drawback is the lack of room for a spare so you're stuck with expensive run flat tires.

One of my best friends owns one. The car is only about 2 years old, but she's already had to take it to the dealer at least 8 times (by my last count) for all kinds of stupid little repairs. Luckily, it's still under warranty, but each trip to the dealer wastes one of her days off and the gas it takes to get there (45 minutes away). She's going to be up a creek when the warranty runs out.

And yes, it's fun to drive, but it's actually an uncomfortable ride on any trip longer than a few errands.

I saw an "authentic" Mini in the parking lot of Trader Joe's in Bellevue a couple of weeks ago. It was older and had a Washington license plate screwed on over a long, yellow license plate, which was my first clue it wasn't one of the newer varieties. When I looked closer, it was a convertible, white, with a red leather interior - it looked very nice, actually. I'd probably never own one, but it was cool to see one just at Trader Joe's in the parking lot like that!

@Canino: When I was a kid my friends father drove us once without using the clutch for shifting. The hardest part was getting into first. He would just shut the car off, wait for the green light, then turn it back on in gear. I thought is was pretty cool. I've done it here and there but never through all the gears. Now-a-days I just pop it out of gear without the clutch when coasting to a red light.

@mgy: Wait, a mini can induce undying love (or at least prolonged attachment)? That's quite a selling point.

I saw such a pretty one yesterday -- a dark metallic maroon with wide black racing stripes from hood to rear bumper. If I still lived in the city, I'd think about a Mini. But for highway driving: yikes, no thanks.

I just drove a Mini Convertible from Zipcar this weekend. I liked everything about the car except the CVT transmission. It had a bothersome lag after hitting the gas before any power got transmitted to the wheels. It was also really hard to drive smoothly in slow or stop and go traffic.

I think a manual would fix everything that bothered me about it though.

@Canino: Maybe he sent it to the shop to see how much you'd worn off the synchromesh gear. Because of the synchros, anyone can shift without the clutch, but if the revs aren't perfectly matched...well, I hope I'm not the one to buy that car afterwards.

@howie_in_az: E30's are the greatest autos ever made. My family has three of them, one with an odometer that stopped years ago at 260,000.

I prefer the Tesla Roadster.

@swedub: I had to do the same thing when my clutch cable broke on my old VW bug. Neutral then stop, turn off car, put it in first then start the car. Shifting between gears was not too hard without a clutch.

that's kinda disappointing that bmw is putting plastic in some of the vehicles they're responsible for manufacturing.

what is this Jalopnik?

That interior is way to busy. Stick with astheticallhy pleasing materials and shapes please would you MINI?

*aesthetically

Mazda Miata > Mini Cooper

Ask anyone who has ever driven a Miata, and they'll have nothing but good things to say about it.

i drive a 2006 MINI. i love it. drives great, gets great gas mileage. haven't needed one repair since i bought it, new, in Feb '07. i've never felt like the interior was 'cheap'.

i took it in for it's annual tune-up, which was covered under warranty. all was well.

the re-sale value is amazing. the best time to buy them is when i did, just as the new models are coming out at the beginning of the year.

It was like fondling a fancy blender from Target.

Why would you be fondling blenders from Target? Is that some sort of Fetish? Rule 34?

I really liked the Coopers when they first came out and considered looking into them when I bought my new car but frankly, I just could not justify spending another $5K or so over what I paid for my Elantra.

Heck, I really couldn't justify that. Next time I'm buying used.

gotta say, i love my 2007 mini. i just celebrated one year with it, and none of the controls have broken. i do agree, they look cheap, but they are durable.

Total.Chick.Car.

I'm fairly sure you can't use the adjective "sweet torque" with the noun Mini Cooper, unless you are talking about the S model.

Those things definitely look like clown cars... makes me love my Honda Fit even more... of course I only drive the Fit when the weather is bad... My Harley is my true love.

@temporaryscars:

We had a Miata before we had 3 more children. A family of three can get away with having a two seater. A family of six, no way! :p We're now considering a Mini, since it (kind of) has a back seat, but we'll be buying used.

@Bladefist: It was cute in the third Austin Powers movie, too. Especially with Michael Caine driving it.

@A.W.E.S.O.M.-O: As long as you're easy with it and listen to your engine, no problems. I've never had an issue anyway. You can't yank on it like an old lady pulling a slot machine handle.

I've driven a Miata for 10 years now. They last forever, are nimble as all hell and give me 30 mph all day long. Drive it like you are on a motorcycle and you will be fine.

Need more room? Buy 2 or 3 of them! (like I have) :D

Just got back from a 400 mile road rip over the mountain pass. 37mpg in our Cooper S with a roof box. I'm 6'4" and have to put the seat forward from it's maximum to reach the pedals and steering wheel. Very comfortable for long drives. Hard to beat the handling, speed, and fuel economy. It gets cozy for 4 people but for 2 of us and the dog, there is plenty of room for 3 days of camping.

@Ben

For zip car stick with the Honda Fit, with flat folding seats or the Toyota Matrix, both with much more space inside. The Mini is small from the outside and from the interior, which is not a good thing. The Mini is fun the first time, but it is horrible in stop-and-go traffic like all of NYC. When I was on the FDR going 50, in 2 seconds the traffic would start to slow and I would press on the brake and stop short. The brakes are too tight.

@mgy:

Cheap plastic aside, if I could bring home one of these mini coopers, my fiance would never leave me.

Also, I'm not sure why everyone is calling the plastic cheap. Ours is one of the new style (w/ the new interior) and I've always been rather impressed by the quality of fit and finish. It's incredibly light, I'll give you that, but still sturdy and solid when in use. We've put ~18,000 miles on it in the last 11 months and it's been pretty good. That said, when something does go wrong, it'll be expensive to fix. I bought the whizz-bang extended warranty (at dealer cost, we're friends w/ the finance manager there) because I'm sufficiently convinced that the car will require at least $1100 worth of repair before it hits 100,000 miles. That's not because I expect it to be hugely unreliable, it's because it's intrinsically a little BMW and as anyone who've ever owned a BMW will tell you, parts for them have to be hand crafted out of sterling silver and gold filigree by tiny wizened little gnomes under a magic oak tree in Bavaria. Then after they've been shipped to the US, they can only be installed by the purest flaxen lock'd virgins at an hourly rate of at least $125 at your local dealer$hip. And you'll need to make an appointment to have it done a couple weeks in advance.

So far though, our only problem has been a faulty passenger airbag sensor in the passenger seat which was obviously fixed under warranty.

Think the mixed blessing of sidewalk stares might've come from the giant green zipcar logo on the side of the car? 'cause I've gotten them in one of the fleet civics and I know damn well those aren't impressive at all.

@alice_bunnie: Sorry to hear that. :( The good news is, when the kids are all grown up, you can buy another one. :D

JN2, I assume you have an NA?

@SigmundTheSeaMonster:
VW Makes a diesel Rabbit (Golf, actually) , however it is not available in the US.

@astraelraen:

I'm fairly sure you can't use the adjective "sweet torque" with the noun Mini Cooper, unless you are talking about the S model.