Gadgetory

well after a thousand years on the Auto Show circuit being teased and teased and teased we finally have the real deal here's the production trim mini coupe now what makes it a coupe versus a standard mini well first of all as with any coupe it's the roofline instead of coming back to that square little cam back thing that minis do this one slopes down kind of like it's wearing a giant football helmet looks like it is a giant football helmet although interestingly this car is basically from the Beltline down a mini Cabrio a mini of any garden variety type it's all the stuff up here and toward the back that's where it changes a lot and of course the inside is different this is the first two seats full production many of the modern era I know there was a John Cooper Works GP but let's leave that out for now let's see what the space is like inside okay inside here pretty much standard mini a couple small trim differences but really that could just be model year as much as model style so where things get interesting is when you turn back here and there are no rear seats that's a big difference but let's see what's behind what would be the rear seats so while this car appears to be the dingiest of the minis from the outside it's actually one of the most spacious back here in the cargo bay look at this it's not just a big space too big usable space the big old box and I guess we've got a nice large pass-through up there as well for really long stuff so this isn't one of those impractical style statements you'll actually enjoy lugging stuff in this little thing if there's any practical benefit to having a mini coop it's the fact that you do cut down wind resistance there's less of a mass in the air and a lower center of gravity there's less stuff sitting up high in the superstructure all right so this mini coop these coops are going to be production cars come into the market imminently we also hear of a roadster version that's going to be coming to the market probably sometime into mid to late 2012 now if you configure one of these you've got a lot of the same choices you've got the same engines the standard or the blown engine to give you a 120 210 horsepower something around there you've also got the same connectivity options you see on that back wall they're mini connected they are emphasizing their Google search and Twitter and web radio but again that's stuff it's already on the mini platform so this car is largely a top half body styling stand but you know what they might sell a lot of them just for their kooky cuteness