Mini has relaunched the five door version of the Cooper, following on from what was offered with the last generation. The new five door is designed to be slightly more practical too, making it a little bit wider and the wheelbase is now 72mm longer. Mini does say though that there is enough space for five people in the car. However, the main news comes down to the drivetrain as the new three-door Mini comes in either pure electric or petrol, but this five-door version only comes in petrol with no manual option planned.

Exterior

The outside is just pure Mini, looking like a larger three-door, unsurprisingly. We have the same minimalist design that the latest generation has with circle LED headlights, angled rear lights, Cooper spelled out in letters and traditional door handles. Mini has a wide array of colours available with nine options for the body and five for the roof itself. As usual, there is also a large choice of alloys too, ranging from 16-inch to 18-inch.

Interior

This latest version of the Mini has also made the interior very minimalist, with a 9.4-inch circler OLED screen. This handles everything for the car from driver instruments, media, Apple CarPlay, climate and more. Mini has also packed in its own voice assistant, which can be activated by saying "Hey Mini" to perform various tasks.

Drivetrain

As mentioned, the five door Mini is only going to be petrol with no EV variant coming. There are two petrols available, a 1.5-litre three cylinder with 154bhp for the Cooper C and a 2.0-litre four cylinder with 201bhp for the Cooper S. Both use a seven speed dual clutch gearbox and Mini has also decided to do away with the manual this time around.

We do have various drive modes, or as Mini calls them "MINI Experience Modes" and these include Core, Green and Go-Kart. There are also Personal, Vibrant, Timeless and Balance. Each mode has a different sound and visual theme.

Prices and availbility

The new Mini Cooper five door is on sale starting from today. Pricing is from £24,050 for the Cooper C and from £28,450 for the Cooper S. Prices are around £900 more than the smaller three-door variant.

Our Take

The lack of a pure EV version is baffling. I can only imagine the platform the three-door sits on, which is built in collaboration with GWM doesn't scale well to make it bigger. The other reason could be demand, I'm not sure how many people choose the five-door over the three-door and the cost of devolping another Mini version might not have been worth it. This new five-door version is still built in Oxford, with the EV Mini being built in China.

The alternative larger Mini EV would be the upcoming Mini Aceman, but thats a crossover.

Source: Mini