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The roof is painted your choice of black or white: meaning it will be a different color from the body, a styling trademark Matchbox owners will remember from the original. According to the chief designer Frank Stephenson, this was deliberately done to make the roof look like it was placed on top of the body, perhaps like a lid on a cookie jar. Time then to open it and see what goodies it has to offer inside. The cabin contains many unique touches, like the huge centrally-mounted speedometer, and the rev counter and secondary gauges sprouting from the top of the steering column. The steering wheel itself is a meaty two-spoker with a large Mini badge in the center and buttons for the audio and other devices. The styling theme for the interior is that of a rally Mini; that is, with a roll cage: the door pulls reside in a large silver oval, and below the center console are two silver struts that connect to the floor. The center console’s switches are magnificent: metallic toggles that will almost convince you that you’re charging down the streets of Monte Carlo while you’re actually blitzing across EDSA. A Mini would not be a Mini if it didn’t have the madcap handling and tenacious grip that made the original fun to drive, as well as a winner of numerous rallies against much larger opponents. With BMW’s Z-axle suspension in the rear (same as the new 3 series’), and McPherson strut front, the Mini should provide a compliant ride as well as entertaining cornering. Straight-line performance is an adequate 10.9 seconds for the Mini One, 9.2 for the Cooper. The supercharged Cooper S should be in the low 7 or high 6-second range. The best part is the Mini starts at just £10,300, PHP760,000 at today’s exchange rate…that’s a bit cheaper than a Civic VTi-S. Hmm…you’d have to weigh the Civic’s size and usefulness versus the Mini’s handling and design, but if BMW can bring this car here with the pricing intact, we predict an instant hit on their hands. A 1-series BMW is reportedly in the works but for now this is BMW's sole fighter in the lightweight division. It pits retro style against the futuristic utilitarianism of the Merc A-class and Audi A2, and in the battle to sell 100,000 units a year, the odds for it are good indeed. MGF and MG sedansIf BMW retained the Mini when it sold Rover, and Ford snapped up Land Rover, what happened to the rest of the lineup? Well, they’re now known as MG sedans. The Rover sedan lineup had been floundering for a long time, even back Rover was owned by Honda and the sedans were based on the Civic and Accord. They didn’t quite hit the mark either under BMW. Now that the company’s independent, things are beginning to look promising. No longer posing an in-house threat to the BMW lineup, the sedans have finally found their personalities: definitely sporty. Spoilers and aero add-ons have been grafted onto the previously sedate lines of the Rover 25, 45 and 75, but the MG ZR, ZS and ZT, as they’re now known, look like they were born to look sporty. Perhaps BMW couldn’t help but imbue these cars with racing genes. Making sure the MGs drive as well as they look is the job of Peter Stevens, who styled the McLaren F1. |
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