The Mini Cooper, then, comes as a Cooper C or -S (constructed at Mini Plant Oxford, and powered by combustion engines) or as a Cooper E or SE (inbuilt China, at BMW Group’s three way partnership Spotlight manufacturing facility, with the assistance of Great Wall Motors). UK first drives within the former ought to come quickly – however for the latter, Mini laid on a pan-European press launch occasion in Barcelona final week, with right-hand drive UK examples arriving in summer season 2024.

This time, there are two electrical Minis, then – and, critically, each supply larger drive batteries and extra electrical vary than the famously nippy-but-short-legged outgoing Mini Electric. The Cooper E will get a brand new nickel-manganese-cobalt drive battery with 36.6kWh of usable capability, up from 28.9- within the outgoing automobile – and a WLTP Combined electrical vary of 190 miles (up from 140-) – with costs ranging from slightly below £30,000. That’s Mini delivering a 36 per cent enhance on usable vary, and preserving peak energy the identical because the outdated automobile, for broadly the identical worth for cash. Not unhealthy.

But if you would like extra of any of the above, the brand new Cooper SE now goes that little bit additional. Here, usable battery capability climbs to 49.2kWh; electrical motor energy to 215bhp; WLTP Combined vary to 249 miles; and the departure-point value to £34,500. There had been solely Cooper SEs to check in Barcelona, in order that’s the mannequin we’ll deal with right here – however Mini expects most Cooper electrical consumers to plump for the SE in any case.

And design-wise? Well, Mini has handled the design of its three-door, heartland-territory ‘icon’ mannequin moderately rigorously because it first appeared in 2001 – however this fourth-generation automobile is a bolder transfer. In pursuit of a cleaner- and extra upmarket look, it has taken away a lot of the outdated automobile’s brightwork, and some of its trademark design particulars.

There are not any cutsie foglamps, entrance wing badges, plastic wheelarch extensions or chunky chrome doorhandles on the brand new automobile. There’s a way more restrained entrance grille; and the wraparound clamshell bonnet – which so famously helped to outline the look of the 2001 BMW Group fashionable Mini, and thru which the headlights of subsequent generations have cheekily poked – has gone, too. The designers wished a smooth ‘pebble-like’ search for the brand new automobile, they are saying; however to those eyes, the impact is barely much less charismatic and endearing on the attention than we’ve develop into used to from Mini. Neater, maybe – however a bit bit much less distinctive and extra generic.