Mini has opened pre-bookings for the petrol-powered fourth-gen Cooper S and the all-electric Countryman in India. It is the first time the Countryman will be coming to India in a fully-electric form. Both models made their global debut in September last year. We expect both these models to officially launch in India around the festive season later this year.
Mini is accepting official bookings for the Cooper S and Countryman at a token amount of Rs 1 lakh.
Mini Cooper S: What to expect?
The fourth-gen Mini Cooper S will undergo several subtle but noticeable changes both on its exterior and interior. Starting with the exterior, it now gets a new octagonal front grille with blacked-out internals with a red-coloured S, flanked by redesigned circular LED headlights with gloss black surrounds. The headlights are given a smoked treatment and circular LED DRL is integrated within the cluster.
Another major change is the larger bonnet which extends beyond the wheel arches. Speaking of wheel arches, the circular arches wrapped by black plastic claddings are filled up by newly designed dual-tone, machine-cut alloy wheels. Another significant change is new taillamp cluster with arrowhead LED elements and the Union Jack signature, connected with a black trim featuring the car’s name.
Inside the cabin, Mini keeps the minimalist tradition intact. This time it gets a larger 9.5-inch round central touchscreen infotainment system with an OLED display which also doubles up as the instrument cluster. Other notable feature additions include MINI Experience Modes, MINI Connected car tech with an Intelligent Personal Assistant, digital key plus, Fisheye In-car Camera, electric seat function, and massage function for driver’s seat.
Powering the new Mini Cooper S will be the same 2.0-litre, four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine as its predecessor, which now delivers 201 bhp and 300 Nm of peak torque, a bump of 26 bhp and 20 Nm. Power is transferred to the front wheels via a standard 7-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox. Mini claims that the new Cooper S sprints to 100 kmph from a standstill in 6.6 seconds.
Mini Countryman electric: What to expect?
The new all-electric Countryman gets a very familiar design with subtle tweaks to distinguish itself from its fossil-fueled sibling. The crossover gets a similar smoked treatment for the headlights with LED DRLs encircling the headlamps but the shape is slightly different. Rest of the design is similar to its fossil fueled sibling.
In terms of features, it gets the same set of features as the Mini Cooper S but gets one big addition over the sports hatch in the form of level 2 Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).
Powering the Mini Countryman electric will be a front-mounted electric motor generating 201 bhp and 250 Nm of torque. This version of the battery-powered Countryman takes 8.6 seconds to reach 100 kmph from a standstill. Mini also offers a more powerful all-electric variant named Countryman SE ALL4 which dishes out 494 Nm of torque. The base Countryman variant offers a range of 462 km on a single-charge, whereas the more powerful SE version returns a peak single-charge range of 433 km (WLTP).
