Home cars Mini Cooper 5-door hatch returns with petrol power

Mini Cooper 5-door hatch returns with petrol power

14
0


The new 201bhp five-door Cooper S is priced from £28,450

New look for Mini’s Golf rival, which is the firm’s final combustion-only car

Mini has unveiled the five-door version of the new Cooper hatchback – the last car the firm is set to offer exclusively with combustion powertrains.

It is effectively a stretched version of the three-door Cooper and swaps that car’s four-seat interior for a more conventional five-seat set-up with a rear bench.

At 4036mm overall, it is 160mm longer than the three-door and 31mm longer than the old five-door. This brings an extra 38mm of rear leg room compared with the three-door and 65 litres more boot space, at 275 litres.

As with the three-door Cooper, two petrol versions will be available. The entry-level Cooper C has a turbocharged 1.5-litre three-pot that sends 152bhp and 170lb ft through the front wheels and dispatches 0-62mph in 8.0sec.

The Cooper S gets a 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine, with outputs boosted to 201bhp and 221lb ft. That enables a 0-62mph time of 6.8sec, which is 0.3sec slower than the three-door Cooper S.

The new Cooper is available exclusively with an automatic gearbox, Mini having dropped the manual version from the line-up last year.

Unlike the three-door, the bigger Cooper will not be offered with a battery-electric powertrain.

The role of five-door electric car has effectively been taken by the Chinese-built Aceman crossover, which is based on the same platform as the electric three-door Cooper.

Prices for the new five-door start at £24,050, which is £555 more than the previous version. This puts it in competition with larger family hatchbacks such as the Hyundai i30 (£22,710), Mazda 3 (£23,955) and Seat Leon (£23,905).

The Cooper S starts at £28,450 – almost £2000 more than you would have paid for the now-discontinued Hyundai i20 N, but also undercutting the Volkswagen Polo GTI (£30,195). UK deliveries will begin in August.

The five-door will be built alongside the petrol-engined three-door at Mini’s Oxford plant, which is being gradually retooled to begin production of the electric Cooper and the Aceman in 2026.

The upcoming Mini Convertible – the final model still to come amid the renewal of the brand’s line-up – will also be built at Oxford.

The five-door is the last car to be unveiled by Mini CEO Stefanie Wurst, who is being replaced by Stefan Richmann, BMW’s corporate strategy boss.

Previous articleAs Tesla Supercharger plans stall, Ionna is going big on EV charging
Next articleNew Volkswagen Golf R: We drive VW’s hottest hatch