Most liked posts in thread: Spied: 2016 MINI Cooper S Convertible Opens Up For Summer

When it's down, it becomes a rear spoiler.....
When it's up, the rear spoiler disappears.....
It's one design that does two things...
Engineering inaction...


in·ac·tion
inˈakSH(ə)n/
noun
lack of action where some is expected or appropriate.
"future generations will condemn us for inaction"
synonyms: inactivity, nonintervention; More

 

Wow, they really have got the roll-over bar well down in the body.

The photo gallery at Carscoops has one photo including a Cooper Convertible - in many ways I prefer the Cooper to the S for looks.

Spied: 2016 MINI Cooper S Convertible Opens Up For Summer

 

You would think all the BMW tech they have access to they would have figure out a cover for the roof when it down and decrease the blind area. :frown2::frown2::frown2:

 

It's not a tech problem, it's a space problem.
They've already moved the back seat forward about 1.5" vs. the hardtop, and have already engineered a tri-fold softtop (which was pretty unique when it came out in 2005), just to be able to fit a convertible roof back there at all. There's not a practical way to make it shorter front to back when folded, and there's not a practical way to eliminate more back seat legroom. So it stays like it is, similar to the Beetle.

As for the blind spot... there's a beefy mechanism hidden inside that blind spot, to make the tri-fold roof work. It's already a pretty sophisticated Rube-Goldberg piece of engineering.

Now they probably COULD make the rear window a bit larger, which would reduce the blind spot some....

 

Actually, I would love to get my car in a wind tunnel. With roof up, roof down, and no roof.

But, not likely to happen.

 

They just need to make the rear longer like they did the front....

 

It might just be that the driver is really short but the belt-line looks really high. Might just be the rake of the windshield makes it look like it but it looks almost to be near the top of the shoulder