Do you want to know why Porsche denied racing Mini at Road Atlanta? Well, it’s because they received details on the facelift version of the Mini Cooper and they were not impressed!
While the changes are pretty much unnoticeable they include revised head lights and tail lights (LED), new exterior colors, and new packages for the interior. Oh yes and an updated engine. The 1.6 liter delivers an extra 2 HP (wow!) and according to first details it offers a 3% fuel savings thanks to the addition of a new map regulated oil pump.
If you are interested, stay tuned for more details, the official debut is imminent!
While everyone is very excited about the arrival of the four-wheel drive Countryman, Mini has another ace in its sleeve. This time it’s all about their most famous model in the line-up: the Cooper, of course. A refreshed facelift version will go on sale this August.
Some spy photographers were lucky enough to catch the Cooper completely undisguised. With these shots, we can see that the lower grille has shed its chrome surrounding in favor of two chrome rimmed air-intakes. Chrome elements are also used at the rear of the car. To finish off the updating on the exterior there are also refreshed light clusters. For the interior, Mini will borrow the high quality materials from the Countryman.
Under the hood the changes made will only focus on improving fuel consumption and cutting CO2 emissions as every automaker is focusing on these days.
The great thing about the Mini Cooper is that no matter what minor changes BMW decides to make to the vehicle, the Mini lovers of the world will always buy it. It’s been known as more of a movement than car ownership and Mini owners everywhere are quite dedicated to their vehicle.
We’ll admit it; we made fun of MINI’s new ’Mission Control’ feature, saying that it has the feel of Sesame Street. And no, we’re not taking it back. There’s a fine line between fun novelty and just plain annoying and MINI’s ’Mission Control’ feature is teetering close to the latter.
That being said, Automobile Magazine associate editor Eric Tingwall proposes a slightly different voice to accompany us inside the 2010 Mini Cooper Camden: none other than KITT from the Knight Rider fame. Now, we admit, we were big fans of the original show with the Hoff himself playing the role of Michael so this hearing KITT’s voice isn’t as annoying as those three voices who always seem to be in quite a "jolly" mood.
Whichever part of the world it’s in, one thing you can always count on with MINI is that it always comes out with uproariously funny commercials.
MINI Canada’s latest advertisement is precisely that; funny as heck and full of breasts, as in huge, jiggling man boobs. Oh, somewhere in the ad, there’s also a Cooper S Convertible having its wheels driven off by two buddies, complete with drifts, burnouts, and the jiggling body fat.
We never said that MINI had a penchant for masochistically disturbing sights, as is the case with the passenger’s nimble pecs. Whereas other brands won’t even dare to skim the ranks of the weird, MINI has long set up shop over and across that fence.
Nowack Motors has just prepared three new tuning packages for the Mini Cooper S and JCW models that are equivalent to someone pumping themselves full of steroids. According to the amount of power they deliver, the new tuning packages are called N210, N230 and N260 and will leave the Coopers seriously ’roided out.
The N210 package delivers, as you guessed, a total of 210 HP and includes a re-programed ECU and a free flow air filter. The N230 takes it to 230 HP thanks to an individually remapped ECU, a high performance stainless steel sport exhaust system, and a free flow air filter.
The most impressive package is the N260. It delivers a total of 260 HP and includes: Nowack Motors exclusive high performance sport camshafts, a Nowack Motors downpipe, a completely prepared flow optimised cylinderhead, a high performance stainless steel sport exhaust system, an optimized intercooling system, an optimized intake air flow inclusive of a high performance free flow air filter and last, but not least, an individually re-programmed ECU.
Consumers will also be happy to know that Nowack Motors tests each and every car before and after the conversion to illustrate just how much power has been added. For the little Mini Cooper S, we hope they check the chassis for any weakening.
