2012 MINI Cooper Coupe Baltimore

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MINI's biggest news of year was the introduction of the MINI Cooper Coupe. The Coupe is set apart from the rest of the MINI lineup with a completely new roofline and greenhouse that's defined by what the automaker calls a helmet. It is a striking design that won't be mistaken for anything else on the road. At the front of the greenhouse is a windshield that's raked 13-degrees more sharply than the regular Cooper; at the rear is a sloping backlight punctuated at the top by a backwards-facing brim. The Coupe cabin is stylish and similar to what is found is other MINI models. The dash and door panels look very cool with many shapes, colors and textures. The 2012 MINI Coupe comes in three trim levels: Cooper, Cooper S, and John Cooper Works.

2012 MINI Cooper Coupe Handling

Powering the 2012 Coupe is a base 1.6-liter four offers up 121 horsepower at 6,000 rpm and 118 pound-feet of torque at 4,250 rpm while the S model's turbocharged mill puts out 181 horses at 5,500 rpm and 177 lb-ft of torque from 1,600 through 5,000 rpm. The John Cooper Works model boosts horsepower to 208 and torque to 192 lb-ft. The MINI Cooper Coupe drives very similar to its Cooper Hardtop sibling. Acceleration is zippy, even though the Coupe weighs some 55 pounds more than the hatchback, it's actually a bit quicker to 60 at 6.5 seconds for the turbocharged S model with the standard six-speed manual transmission. Opting for a six-speed automatic will add a few tenths to either the base Cooper Coupe or the S; the JCW is offered only with the manual gearbox.

Design of the '12 MINI Cooper Coupe

The 2012 Coupe receives a completely unique roofline and greenhouse. At the front of the greenhouse is a windshield that's raked 13-degrees more sharply than the regular Cooper; at the rear is a sloping backlight punctuated at the top by a backwards-facing brim. The rest of the car carries all the cues expected of the MINI brand. This includes the large oval headlamps, tall slab sides and short front and rear overhangs. The front of the MINI Coupe is the familiar double-decker grille flanked by a pair of fog lamps, and the bulbous hood includes an air intake on models equipped with turbocharged engines. The rear gets a new spoiler that automatically raises itself at 50 miles per hour. Though the unit automatically stows itself at 37 mph, there's no way to manually lower it.

2012 Cooper Coupe Interior

Considering that there's no back seat eating into the Coupe's interior dimensions, there's 7 cubic feet of storage space in the cargo hold, which is a bit more room than the 5.7 cubic feet you'll find in the hatch of the Cooper. Inside the MINI Cooper Coupe you will find a very stylish cabin very similar in appearance to what MINI offers in the rest of its line. The major difference is there's two indentations in the roof to make sure even those well over six-feet-tall have plenty of head room. There is a huge amount of modern technology inside the Coupe. It features the MINI Connected system as well as the all new MOG streaming music integration. The gist is that owners of compatible phones can install an application, connect their phones via a hardwired cable and play all their favorite tunes over the air instead of using a music player that keeps all the songs on its internal memory. Instead of a touchscreen there's a tiny joystick between the front seats that operates the system. Instead of using four-way directional movement, the joystick spins to move up and down the menu structure, and a press down on the stick selects an item.

Conclusions

Standard safety equipment on the 2012 Coupe includes six airbags, traction and stability control and anti-lock brakes. Features such as bi-xenon headlights, sport suspension, Dynamic Traction Control, navigation system, parking sensors, and Bluetooth are available. Both satellite and HD radio are standard equipment. For more details on this new model, visit the official MINI Cooper Coupe website!

Some information for this review was obtained from NewCarTestDrive.com