2025 Mini Cooper Convertible First Force Overview: Mini-mal Medling
“Most principal funding in the Mini ticket since 1959.” That line’s been repeated in most cases this year as Mini has refreshed its complete 11-model lineup—and we appropriate got an opportunity to drive one of many last to attain: the 2025 Mini Cooper Convertible. The Hardtop 2-Door is mostly original from the ground up, nonetheless the plot adjustments are icon-incremental (perceive Porsche 911). And since the convertible’s high mechanism (along with its “sunroof mode”) and trunk home optimization were already so gargantuan, Mini decided to retain this equipment over.
Quiet Readily available in Three Spice Stages
As in the hardtop, the rotten and Oxford trims procure pleasure from a most well-known powertrain improve from three cylinders to four—boosting vitality by 20 percent and refinement by considerably extra. Now the Cooper and Cooper S allotment the an identical B48A20M2 engine, with the rotten model programmed to raise 161 hp and 184 lb-ft (up 27 and 22, respectively from the triple). The S makes 201 hp and 221 lb-ft, up 32 lb-ft nonetheless down 5 horses. These engines also allotment the an identical seven-tempo twin-snatch transmission. At the cease of the performance heap is the John Cooper Works model. Its engine is altered sufficient (gas injectors, cam profiles, and other peripherals) to warrant different engine nomenclature—B48A20O2—nonetheless its internals did now not want altering to attain its 228-hp, 280-lb-ft rating. (Existing that the 312-hp/295-lb-ft Countryman JCW’s B48A20T2 does procure beefier internals.) The JCW’s Sport DCT gearbox enjoys unfamiliar gearing, with ratios shortened by about 6 percent relative to the rotten and S for spritelier acceleration. It also shifts faster and will get predictive though-provoking, which consults the navigation to await curves and hills to handiest resolve the optimal equipment for the aspect twin carriageway ahead.
How Does It Force?
Mini introduced most of its lineup to Savannah, Georgia, the put the low-country meals is spectacular, nonetheless tight, twisty, hilly byways in a position to showcasing a Mini’s trudge-kart nature are nonexistent. So a thorough dialogue of how well it Minis must again till we procure one for a long duration. Sadly lacking from the lineup were any rotten Coopers. We can show you the Cooper S and John Cooper Works convertible are precisely differentiated in phrases of performance and facing.
We dropped the hammer on every body assist to assist and straight most favorite the contribution the shorter-geared, extra aggressively programmed transmission makes to the JCW. It feels method extra than 13 percent extra worthy. And essentially, with Enhance mode activated, it must be—Mini says this affords 10 percent extra vitality by method of added turbo enhance for 10 seconds, nonetheless because it by no method quantifies the total peak vitality with Enhance mode, we don’t checklist that unofficial 251 figure in our specs. The JCW barked its entrance tires on the one-two upshift and on the total gave sturdy “straining-at-the-leash” vibes in its Flow-Kart abilities mode (the put it repeatedly belongs). Green mode anesthetizes it to below the eagerness level of the Cooper S in its Flow-Kart mode.
As is the case all the method thru the Mini lineup, shift paddles are unheard of to the JCW—satirically, the variant that wants them the least given its transmission’s extra aggressive shift time table.
Mini pegs the 0–60-mph time distinction at a half second (6.7 for the S, 6.2 for the JCW). We seek info from testing to original a small faster numbers for every. Existing that the 40-hp/37-lb-ft gap between the S and the rotten automobile is forecast to slack the 60-mph trail time to a pedestrian 7.9 seconds. (We seek info from the aftermarket will offer compelling choices for closing that electronically imposed vitality and torque gulf between rotten and S autos.)
How Does It Convert?
The murky cloth high, which is level-headed on hand with a Union Jack in a contrasting grey herringbone weave, is the least modified component of the original Mini Convertible. That’s no shock for the rationale that feeble one didn’t want powerful change. The cease raises and lowers lickety-split at the contact of a single button on the windshield header at quickens to 19 mph. A single button raises and lowers all four home windows, and there’s an effortless-to-set up wind-blocker that enormously reduces turbulence in the entrance seat, permitting easy conversation at 70 mph. The blusteriest mode is “Sunroof,” in which appropriate the piece of roof above the entrance seats retracts.
The assist seat in all fairness accommodating to life like-sized adults for transient trips, and optimal exhaust of the diminutive trunk is assured by a artful mechanism that allows the rear of the raised roof to be elevated for more uncomplicated entry. Sadly, one hardtop improve now not on hand on the convertible is the chunky Comfort Fetch entry to 2.0 machine that allows cellular phone-as-key entry and beginning, because that requires antennas mounted in the roof rails. Convertible owners can level-headed exhaust their phones as a key, nonetheless they’ll must pull it out and make contact with it to the door handle to procure in and placement the cellular phone on the wireless charger sooner than keying on.
We don’t occupy many notes to improve its convertibleness, though we would possibly maybe perchance also describe extending the blind-situation detection range just a small, since the mountainous high stack method autos that are about to enter the vulnerable blind-situation hazard zone can’t be viewed in the rearview savor. We needed to be taught to appear at the aspect-compare mirrors extra reasonably to care for away from angering drawing shut autos.
Righteously Inflexible
We were struck by the virtually total lack of any cowl shake or quivering aftershocks when traversing bumps and pavement irregularities in each items we drove. We pressed Mini reps to quantify the rise in torsional stress or the physique’s natural frequency nonetheless were merely advisable the distinction used to be “important.” A rigid structure is a most well-known enabler of spritely chassis dynamics, and this one looks to raise. John Cooper Works items procure noticeably stiffer damping, though the convertible is now not as firmly damped as the hardtop JCW. (The damping is now not electronically adjustable, so it’s now not tied to Skills modes, nonetheless the shocks are frequency-selective, which method diminutive-amplitude, excessive-frequency inputs on highways and the esteem are absorbed, while low-frequency cornering/braking forces are extra firmly damped.)
All the Mini Mode Madness
We’ve been huge followers of the excessive diploma of personalization the 9.4-experience spherical masks affords in other items, and the convertible provides one Mini meter of its have: The Continuously Beginning meter keeps tune of beginning-high motoring time over the lifetime of the car. We would possibly maybe perchance also moreover articulate that the additional brightness and distinction of the Samsung-developed OLED masks in actuality pays for itself in legibility when the sun’s lustrous without delay on it.
Fetch Delights
The major motive to settle a Mini is its cheeky plot, and the 2025 model makes personalizing a Mini powerful extra fun, with original picks of exterior and interior colors that toughen the highest fee nature of the Mini ticket. We cherish that every experience of the inner has been designed. There are oval issues all the method thru: door handles, cupholders, the surrounds for various button banks—even the ridiculously outsized secret’s an oval. Existing that conserving the rear hatch sheetmetal precludes the convertible from adopting the hardtop’s original taillight shape, nonetheless the LED pattern contained in the lights apes its half-a-Union-Jack explore.
Is the Mini Convertible Value It?
Solar-worshipping automobile traders are now not exactly crippled by different this original day. If you’re now not an oligarch or A-checklist influencer, occupy a $50,000 ticket cap, and desire a assist seat, it’s this, a Ford Mustang, or an off-roader (Bronco/Wrangler). It’s laborious to appear at loads of conflicted rotten-taking a look among those disparate choices. And at the entry ticket of $35,125, an eight-second Mini, on hand in fun colors looks esteem sever price. Even the John Cooper Works, beginning at $44,875 strikes us as a natty, with out notify rationalized aquire.
