Wait a second, haven’t we seen the 2025 Mini Cooper already? Well, yes, but only sort-of. While Mini showed everyone its incoming electric hatchback last year, it’s not the only new model coming down the pipeline. Electric power isn’t for everyone, which is why a new gasoline-powered Mini Cooper is here and it sure seems like an extensive facelift of the old one we know and love.
Let’s start under the hood, where the two-liter turbocharged four-banger in the Cooper S now offers 201 horsepower and 221 lb.-ft. of torque, up from 189 horsepower and 207 lb.-ft. of torque. That ought to slightly soften the blow of no longer being able to choose a manual transmission, although for some drivers, a little extra power won’t make up for a mandatory automatic transmission. As for the standard Cooper C, which replaces the Cooper trim, it will also get a two-liter engine in America, although output hasn’t yet been disclosed. Considering the old Cooper came with a 1.5-liter turbocharged triple, this new powertrain sounds like it could offer a step up in refinement.
On the outside, Mini appears to have improved the new Cooper by taking away a bunch of visual clutter. The air curtains in the corners of the front bumper are gone, and so is the fake hood scoop, and so are the gills on the front fenders. The lower grille has been simplified, the grille bezel thinned out, the exhaust tips tucked away, the chrome fuel door deleted, and the sheer amount of unpainted plastic on the rear bumper has been brought down. The result is a substantially more handsome Mini Cooper than the outgoing model, but there are several tells that this isn’t the electric model.
The big one is the unpainted trim around each wheel arch, something totally absent on the electric model. In addition, the new gasoline-powered Mini Cooper’s door handles are conventional, its quarter panels don’t feature sharp shoulder creases, and the whole thing just looks a tiny bit more retro than the electric version thanks to softer surfacing.
Mind you, the facelift isn’t just a matter of changing a few exterior panels and trim, because the new Mini Cooper S features a dramatically revamped interior, in which almost everything happens through a 9.4-inch round OLED screen. Instruments, climate, phone connectivity, the works. Sure, several key safety and driving features do have physical controls in the center stack, but this will definitely be an adjustment for anyone used to the old car’s physical instrument cluster.
While running two different Minis side-by-side in showrooms sounds weird, it currently makes a lot of sense to sell gasoline and electric cars. If you can’t charge at home or at work, an electric car just isn’t the right solution for you at the moment, so demand is still there for trusty ol’ gasoline. Obviously, one last model cycle of combustion makes it hard to justify an entirely new car from the ground up, but there seem to be enough changes on the 2025 Mini Cooper S to make it seem new to consumers.
Expect this new Mini Cooper S to start production in March with a price tag of $33,195 including a $995 freight charge. Wait a few months, and the Cooper C will arrive on the scene priced from $29,945 including a $995 freight charge. Neither of those prices are cheap, but they do come with a mildly interesting fact — while the new electric Mini will come from China, the new gasoline-powered model will be made in Oxford. Talk about selling heritage.
(Photo credits: Mini)
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No manual, no care.
I do think Mini could do something cool and offer a 150ish hp electric Mini with a 5 speed manual. Just enough power to have fun but not enough to getaway without a transmission to take advantage of the minimal power.
is that 9.4 inch screen still measured diagonally or do they do vertical for round screens?
Nothing on the “experiences” switch? Does it like suddenly set the car on fire or catapult you out through the roof of the car?
It looked pretty good until I saw the back end. It looks like some sort of emoji.
(>—<)
I love the idea of a small luxury car but I’m not sure that this is achieving it
Enthusiasts will hate the lack of a manual, the screen nightmare and that they keep getting bigger (I’m personally fine with this, I understand it’s damn near impossible for the original reboot Mini to exist in 2024). Non-enthusiasts will hate that it’s not the size of a school bus. The few non-enthusiasts that are willing to drive a small, practical car will hate that the cheapest example they’ll find is probably going to be 35k.
I’m struggling to figure out who these modern Minis are for.
There are a couple real Mini’s for sale at Duncans Imports. Just as a thought exercise, go to their website, and look at the difference in physical dimensions between this, and the original British design.
It’s unforgivable that BMW even wants to call this thing a ‘Mini’ at all.
No. No it’s not. Stop lying.
Are there any other car brands selling models that are dimensionally equivalent to what they offered in the 1950s? Also, take the design brief from the original and apply it to something that can legally be sold today – is there anything else smaller on the market that seats a family of four?
Fiat’s 500 was very close, and it is still in production. But that’s not really the point. The point is, that ‘Mini’ should mean just that. The design of this new iteration is too busy, from the contrived Union Jack of its signals, to the center console screen. The Mini is supposed to be spartan in design. A few real switches, just the minimum of equipment (thus ‘mini’) and barely enough space for post-war body size. God forbid an average corpulent American tries to drive a Mini classic.
There remains a need for spartan, basic vehicles. And that need is not being serviced.
Those used to exist. (Fit, Versa, Mirage, etc.) Americans stopped buying them. Minis have stuck around because they are something people actually want to buy & keep. I too would love a more stripped down Mini in theory, but I can’t say with a straight face that I don’t love some of the bells & whistles that came standard on my ‘21 SE. Sometimes it’s nice to have nice things, and that’s the reality of the new car market right now. As to the size, there is no possible way to fit 2x modern car seats into a smaller passenger space that the current mini hatch – and even that is bordering on too small for anyone in the neighborhood of 6’ (height, not girth is the limiting factor in the modern cars). The old cars could be smaller because they were death traps…not a highly marketable asset
The fancy graphic in the center screen is eye-catching in the press photos, but I feel like it would be a usability nightmare. The upper left area (the most important since it’s the one closest to the driver’s eye line) is a washed out mess because of the background photo.
I’m SO GLAD they removed most of the physical climate control buttons in favor of an “Experiences” toggle. Man, I was really going to be bummed if I had to root through numerous menus of a circular infotainment screen so I could go from “chill” to “neurotic” on the fly.
The mid-cycle refresh is probably getting a “Vibes” toggle to go next to it
I wonder how Frank Stephenson must feel to have designed an absolutely stunning car, then watch that design get mutilated every time a new model or refresh comes out. Sure, this is better than the outgoing model, but the R53 MINI was an excellent modern take on the classic. This is clinging to the same cues but does them all horribly and it’s bloated. Not cute.
The R53/R56 looked like angry little bulldogs, this looks scared with its boulbous eyes and huge, guffawing grille, and the rear is unsettling to look at.
I take it as a really bad sign that BMW/Mini are dropping so many of their manual offerings. I would have thought the take rate was pretty high for a manual Mini. It’s a car that I would only want with a manual option, unless I was going for an electric one. It just doesn’t work well for me to have a stick as a daily anymore though, because I had one for about 9 years and my wife still wouldn’t learn to drive it. So the MGB is my manual car and I have to stick to autos for my daily because it’s too inconvenient to have a daily that only I can drive.
Hard pass.
That interior looks like hell on earth. No physical HVAC controls, the shifter for the mandatory automatic is operated via buttons where the HVAC stuff should be, there’s a weird key esque thing instead of a button to start the car…what fresh hell is this?
No one wants this shit. You’re never going to out Tesla Tesla and the people who want Teslas buy Teslas. The end. No one wants to drive a rolling tablet, and I’d imagine the Mini crowd especially doesn’t want to. One of the only things that kept their cars interesting was the comparatively engaging, analog driving experience.
Now that that’s gone what’s left? The looks? They’re still pretty attractive cars but it’s not like the new ones are all that different from the old ones. You also pay a serious premium for them! They’re basically as expensive as entry level luxury cars and have all the reliability bugaboos of every other BMW.
I agree with Ranwhenparked. BMW has totally lost the plot with Mini. There’s just nothing left here that’s appealing anymore outside of the styling.
Hey, at least there’s a physical control for the Experiences, which uh, yeah
I saw that and was mortified. What does that do? Change the background of the tablet? Make the car make fart noises? Does it have a party mode so they can try even harder to appeal to the Tesla crowd?
Probably the ambient lighting which they’ve had for a long time
Good, I’d much rather have instant access to the ambient lighting options that HVAC adjustments!
Ambiance is IMPORTANT
Who needs AC when you’ve got a e s t h e t i c s ?!
Hey, you buy this thing, you’re gonna need some Ambien.
They got rid of physical controls and the manual option. What an original, inspiring strategy.
It is very cute and I love the color. But I don’t see what this thing can offer that’s worth $10K over a Kia Soul at this point.
I think BMW has been steadily losing the plot with MINI with each revision post-Rover, I know every subsequent face-lift or redesign has been slightly less appealing than the previous one, to me, anyway. Although sales figures also seem to support that
Agree. I wanted to want a Mini with my last car purchase, but even when the manual was an option, I just could NOT justify the price premium.
I always really wanted an R55 Clubman, but ended up buying a Mustang instead when I was shopping, then BMW stopped making them in favor of the F54 stretch limo version that does nothing for me. And now the R55s are too old/too BMW to justify as a daily, and too new to be vintage, so they’re in that weird spot where I’d just never own one as a used car without a warranty
I will give it props for offering 2 doors in a 4 door obsessed world. And also for seemingly increasing the cylinder count from 3 to 4 (how often does that happen anymore?) But yeah beyond that it doesn’t offer much.
That’s funny because I thought, “And it only has 2 doors!”