MINI HARDTOP 4 DOOR

[ 2015 ]

MORE USEFUL, BUT AT WHAT COST?

IF YOU ACCEPT THAT EVER-EXPANDING Mini is a brand, rather than a descriptor, this new Hardtop 4 Door—the car’s actual, if uncreative, model name—makes perfect sense. Sure, the standard two-door Mini looks cool, but four doors are useful. Simply adding two extra holes to a two-door Mini would have been pointless, though, given that car’s lack of rear legroom. So the 4 Door’s designers threw in an extra 2.9 inches of wheelbase.

That doesn’t sound like much, but it makes this a proper five-seat car, at least in a pinch. There’s still way more room in the trunk and back seat of a VW Golf, which is admittedly 10 inches longer than this new, big Mini. The Mini’s real problem is that it seems to have been savagely beaten by the ugly stick on its way out of R&D. The profile looks unhappy, and when you open one of those back doors, there’s a weird dogleg in the window frame.

Mini engineers claim the 4 Door’s chassis is set up to feel just like the standard car’s, but the longer wheelbase seems to calm the latter’s fidgety ride without compromising the traditional Mini hunger for apexes. Engines mirror those in the two-door car: a 134-hp turbo three for the Cooper, which accelerates to 60 mph in about eight seconds; and a 189-hp, 2.0-liter four in the Cooper S that’s a second quicker to the same mark. Both are three-tenths of a second slower than their two-door cousins—blame the approximately 140-pound weight gain. The S feels brisk, but nothing more, so wait for the inevitable John Cooper Works if you’re a horsepower junkie.

The original two-door will still take the lion’s share of sales, but the 4 Door’s direct access to its rear seats will likely bring in new buyers who’d previously discounted the Hardtop and didn’t want anything to do with the brand’s Countryman crossover—which is still based on the last-generation Mini. Objectively, four doors beat two, and at only $1000 more, the 4 Door isn’t bad value. But it’s not as charming in the looks department, where Mini has always been among the biggest players. —CHRIS CHILTON

PRICE $22,550

POWERTRAIN

1.5-liter I-3, 134 hp, 162 lb-ft; FWD, 6-speed manual WEIGHT 2750 lb TOP SPEED 129 mph ON SALE Now