MotoringFile 2014 F56 MINI Cooper S Hands-On Gallery

I've gotta admit, aside from the fact that the front end kinda looks like it got its teeth kicked in in a bar fight, there's a lot'a cool s#+t in this new MINI...

 

Cool but not needed for the most part.

 

I agree with Dave. They ll seem to be in one package, so they can be skipped.

What goes where the missing toggle on the left of the bank is?

 

tach/speedo re-location/downsizing....so wrong....I can't get past it....I just can't:cryin:

Especially when they did it to appease people who wouldn't have a clue about the significance of the dinner-place speedo in the center of the car...

I know, I know, get over it and move on....

I agree that technology-wise, the F56 definitely has it goin' on.

 

The dinner-plate speedo in the center of the car was only ever a tacky fake copy of the original Mini's speedo, done by stylists who had been told to make the thing big enough to fit a nav screen inside, however bad/stupid/tasteless that made it look. Don't confuse 'distinctive' with 'ugly' - it was only ever a design that even Datsun would have rejected in their worst styling days.

 

The center speedo is a must for any MINI. Without it the car is just a small BMW. Mini/MINI's have always been qwerky....IMO when the cease being qwerky they cease being MINI's.

 

Qwuerky post below.....

I agree with this ^^^. For me the center speedo is fine & looks right, but it's for the sake of styling only, not so the car can be easily converted to LHD or RHD for different markets as in the old days.

Even though I like my center speedo as many do, how many actually use the center speedo? For me I use the digital readout in the tach. I'd bet most people do too. The center speedo is a good place to stick my GPS so there's that.

To say a MINI is not a MINI because of no central speedo puzzles me. So someone who has a chrono pack in their R50-R53 is not driving a MINI? Mini stopped using a center speedo in the classic, are those Minis? MINI never made a 2 seat coupe or a roadster, are they MINIs? Of course they all are.

Buy one or not the F'n 56 is a quite qwerky MINI, possibly the qwerkiest yet.:crazy:

 

I never liked the center speedo. In my R52 I chose Nav partly to get rid of it.

In the R53, I thought the center speedo was cute and impractical, like something you'd see in a concept car. In the R56, they somehow managed to make it both bigger and even less useful and it became a caricature of itself.

 

Little known secret. The speedo in the R56 can double as a donut spare tire. :wink:

 

To each his own.... I like the center speedo.

 

Me too, but it ain't a deal breaker for me.

 

I'm OK with the center spedo, but really never use it.... I use the digital in the tach...

The deal breaker for me are the F56 bumpers.... I'll most likely wait for MINI to come to their senses with a redesign.... or move over to something else.... I won't get a new MINI with that face..... Even in the dark color.... But that's just me....

 

My next MINI I will go backwards to either an '06 GP1 or JCW.

 

You won't have to buy a new MINI for a very long time. You take great care of your car & the mods that you've done only enhance it, not shorten Fungo Squiggly's life.

 

Thanks Chuck....
I'll keep the R56 until I don't....

 

My wife says the center speedo in my R56 looks like the clock around Flav a Flav's neck. So I don't let her drive it....