FIVE STAR? (some text hidden) --NONE--

By Jonathan Crouch

The MINI Cooper 5 Door broadens this latest-era MINI Hatch model's sales reach. Jonathan Crouch takes a look.

Ten Second Reviewword count: 24

The MINI Cooper 5 Door delivers more MINI for lovers of the brand's small hatch, in a combustion-only package. But not too much more.

Backgroundword count: 155

Take a standard MINI, add a dash of length and practicality and you'd have a strong seller. You'd have a car like this, the MINI Cooper 5 Door. This is the second version of this design - and it marks the end of an era for the brand; the last car the company will launch exclusively with combustion powertrains. The earliest BMW-engineered MINI Hatch models couldn't be had in 5 Door form because the platform used for them wasn't big enough. All that changed in 2013 when the third generation Bavarian-developed 'F56'-series version arrived, complete with significant increases in length, width and height. That paved the way for the first 'F55'-series 5-Door Hatch design a year later, a car then updated in 2018. The F66-era MINI Cooper which arrived in Autumn 2023 was also engineered with this F65 5 Door body shape in mind, though strangely, only in combustion form. Let's take a closer look.

Driving Experienceword count: 273

Unlike with the Cooper 3 Door, there's no full-electric drivetrain available here. First because the separate platform designed with the Chinese for the Cooper Electric 3 Door wasn't ever engineered for this larger body style. And second because MINI wants those in search of a five-door EV of this size to choose its Aceman small SUV. So for the Cooper 5 Door, it's a combustion-only range, shared of course with the 3 Door version. The base Cooper C variant has a 1.5-litre three cylinder turbo powertrain that puts out 230Nm and 154hp (20hp more than before). The rest to 62mph time suffers slightly with the weight of the 5 Door bodystyle, falling from 7.7s to 8.0s en route to 139mph. The alternative powerplant is the 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo in the Cooper S, which comes with 300Nm and 201hp (25hp more than before). That gets the Cooper S 5 Door to 62mph in 6.8s (0.2s slower than the 3 Door version). No faster John Cooper Works version is yet planned. Both variants offer the freshly-introduced seven so-called 'MINI Experience' modes - 'Core', 'Green', 'Go-kart', 'Personal', 'Vibrant', 'Timeless' and 'Balance'. As the names suggest, these do a lot more than just affect steering feel and throttle response, altering cabin colours and graphics. What you can't have in this generation Cooper 5 Door, rather sadly, is a manual gearbox. The previously optional Steptronic 7-speed auto is now non-negotiable and can be had in sharper-responding 'Sport' form complete with paddles on the steering wheel, if you specify 'Sport' trim. It works via a gear selector relocated from the centre console to a panel below the centre screen.

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