Undermining the work of spy photographers all over the world, Mini gave us our first official take a look at the next-generation Hardtop by publishing a sequence of photographs that present the hatchback carrying full camouflage. Whereas the finer design particulars stay hidden, the photographs are revealing sufficient to supply a really first rate concept of what to anticipate — and what to not anticipate — from the fourth technology of this British icon.
What’s instantly clear is that the following Hardtop appears to be like like a Mini; or, not less than, like the German reinvention of the Mini. Designers have not considerably modified the hatchback’s proportions, they usually saved defining styling cues reminiscent of spherical headlights, an almost flat roof panel, and vertical hind lights. One attention-grabbing element is that the headlights are now not built-in into the hood; the Mini seemingly loses its clamshell hood in favor of a extra standard unit that stops at about the identical stage because the A-pillars. Mini additionally mounted the door handles flush with the physique. We’re guessing extra particulars will bounce out when the camouflage come off, however we’re anticipating principally evolutionary modifications.
“What you will see in 2023 is that we have clearly modernized it by taking a giant step — the largest step within the final 20 years — however it is going to be unmistakably a Mini,” said Mini boss Bernd Körber in December 2020. He added that the venture’s motto was “do not screw with an icon.”
Mini hopes to turn into an electric-only model by the start of the 2030s, however we’re not there but. Whereas the Hardtop draped in camouflage runs on batteries, gasoline-powered fashions will proceed to be a part of the vary in lots of markets all over the world. It is too early to supply technical particulars, nevertheless it’s affordable to imagine that each the EV and the gasoline-sipping fashions will profit from drivetrain enhancements. Entrance-wheel-drive will proceed to return normal, prefer it all the time has. Will the stick-shift survive? We’re conserving our fingers crossed.
Extra details about the next-generation Mini Hardtop might be launched within the coming months, and the mannequin is scheduled to make its debut in 2023. It is one in every of a number of new fashions the BMW-owned model has within the pipeline. The next-generation Countryman is scheduled to enter manufacturing in 2023 as effectively, an electrical high-performance John Cooper Works-branded mannequin is on its way, and Mini pledged to launch a crossover it described as “small” (which is extremely relative, even for Mini) that can completely be supplied with an electrical powertrain.
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