Has a Mini ever left the factory with no options or upgrades? Parked down my street is a rare example of a bog standard Mini One: solid red paint with black plastic wing mirrors and steel wheels. The owner is a wise man – he got a great car for £12k – but it goes against the whole brand ethos. Picking your bells and whistles is a part of the Mini experience.
Alas I missed out on this part of the process: a bod at BMW head office specified my Countryman’s options so the car arrived ASAP. Low key, if not inexpensive, seems to be the order of the day when it comes to the spec. You can have a 2wd Countryman, but ours uses the ALL4 intelligent four-wheel drive system. This ups the cost by a little over £1000 and downs the official mpg figure by a little over 10%.
Our car, with its 110hp diesel engine, sits in the middle of the oil burning Countryman range, with an underpowered 89bhp base model below it, and the hot new 141bhp Cooper SD topping the range while still returning the same economy figures as the slower cars.
As for the rest, I generally slip by unnoticed in this curious looking vehicle due to the Royal Grey metallic paint (£385 – and not the most exciting colour on offer) and the matching roof (black or white are no-cost options our car doesn’t have). Ditto for the wheels – we have boggo silver. We do have white indicator lenses for £70, but have you noticed them?
Other exterior options fitted such as xenon headlights (£590) and folding, dimming wing mirrors (£215) add function if not flair. It’s all just a bit too grown up for a Mini. Is it possible to retro fit a Union Jack roof and wing mirrors, big black wheels and some body stripes?
Next, the leather-lavished interior...
<source> carmagazine.co.uk
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