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2005 MINI Cooper Road Test

Flying at Low Altitudes

It looks like we were all wrong. 2005 is fast approaching, but wheres my flying car? My floors arent cleaned by a robotized vacuum, my homeworks not being done by a room-sized machine full of blinking and flashing lights, and the last time a human landed on another celestial body, my parents were still in university.

Our time is really nothing like most imagined it back in the 50s, or at least its not like the 21st century as projected in that decades sci-fi films and Saturday morning cartoons such as the Jetsons. My heartfelt condolences go out to science fiction script writers who would have had dramatically less successful careers had they known the future would, for a large part, be about looking to the past, indulging in nostalgia.

Speaking of retro, what is it that Im driving this week? A MINI Cooper, an immortalized slice of 1960s pie, an icon that belongs alongside the Beetles, JFK, and

A MINI Cooper, an immortalized slice of 1960s pie, hardly the sort of vehicle a person from 1960 would have figured the masses would be driving in the year 2005. (Photo: Justin Couture, American Auto Press)

the first landing on the moon, hardly the sort of vehicle a person from 1960 would have figured the masses would be driving in the year 2005. Few would have figured that the original Mini would have lasted more than 40 years without a replacement, a testament to its solid engineering and sheer intuitiveness. Heck, it even outlasted the worlds first and only supersonic airliner, the Concord, a glimpse of the future now permanently grounded in aerospace museums. While the original Mini is now grounded just like the Concords, a new MINI lives while supersonic air transport

The new MINI has been called in for a mid-cycle update just two and a half years after its initial introduction. (Photo: Justin Couture, American Auto Press)

is, for the time being, once again the stuff of dreams. It seems a bit odd then, considering just how long the first generation Mini lasted without a major update, that the new MINI has been called in for a mid-cycle update just two and a half years after its initial introduction.

Now with a successful well-established product, BMW felt that it was time to run over the MINI with a fine-toothed comb, addressing complaints from the first batch of 500,000 or so owners. In addition to adding the all-new Convertible model, a host of minor changes to the exterior and interior were made for 2005 model year MINIs. However hard these alterations are to pick out

BMW felt that it was time to run over the MINI with a fine-toothed comb, addressing complaints from the first batch of 500,000 or so owners. (Photo: Justin Couture, American Auto Press)

to the non-MINI enthusiast, they are nevertheless relevant in being proof of the brands commitment to constant improvement.

It will take a sharp eye to locate the visual differences between the new MINI Cooper and last years model. Both have the same cheeky, happy, MINI face, but up front the newer model features revised headlamps and bumpers. The Coopers powerful xenon headlamps take on a Gatling gun appearance with miniature beams surrounding a large center beam at each corner. The cold blue glow of the main units are accompanied by regular halogen twin-beam lamps, which fill in the lower half of the MINIs oversized bezels. The retro-inspired rub strips on the front bumper were ditched in favor of a cleaner lower

Although hard to spot, the newer model features revised headlamps and bumpers. (Photo: Justin Couture, American Auto Press)

valance featuring integrated fog lamps and a thin chrome strip that runs across the main intake.

At the back, similar changes can be found: new tail lamps feature integrated reverse lights while the bezel features a different, cleaner look. The rear bumper has also changed, with repositioned rub strips and a low-mounted hexagonal rear fog lamp. A single, subtle chromed exhaust tip pokes out on the far right hand side under the matted black wraparound plastic skirt. Other than these changes, MINI styling has remained the same, its character perpetually cheeky, and cute.

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