Mini 5-Door hatchback: A car for a new generation

Mini has chosen the stately home Fawlely Court in Henley on Thames to launch the new Mini hatch 5-door.
Test drives offered to international media included a visit to the Oxford Plant where all Minis are made.
There are so many variants of the Mini family and the latest one has no historical predecessor — as all previous hatch models had three doors only.
However, the company realized there is more demand for small five-door hatch cars than three-door hatches (by a factor of 3:1) and went ahead with the project that took two years of planning. The result is a great package that is likely to attract a whole new generation of buyers. Keeping proportion in mind, Mini engineers stretched the body of the three-door hatch by 161 mm and wheel-base by about 72 mm to make it actually bigger than the Ford Fiesta and the VW Polo. Yet, the MINI is still lower than these two cars despite a roofline taller by 11 mm.
The acid test for the MINI Hatch 5-door is space for rear passengers.
Sitting in the back seat is comfortable for tall adults as the car gains 7 mm of extra leg room over the 3-door models. There is also 60 mm extra width for seats despite being no wider on the outside. MINI also managed to squeeze in a third seat in the middle of the back row but a raised floor in the middle makes good only as an occasional seat. The 5-door hatch also has a bigger boot than the 3-door version by 67 more cubic liters to an overall capacity of 278 cl.
There is an extra compartment below floor level and also backseats fold flat to give more luggage capacity.
Buyers in the region can choose their model between Cooper and Cooper S and first arrival in the region would be during November 2014.
The choice of engines would be between a 1.5 liter, three-cylinder engine in the Cooper model to a two liter engine with four cylinders in the Cooper S which has 170 BHP and can propel the car to 100 km/h in 6.9 seconds. The Cooper S uses 5.9 liters of fuel per 100 km which is one of the best in class. A six-speed manual gearbox is standard while a six-speed automatic would be an option for all models.
There was no drastic change in the front of the car between the 5-door and 3-door hatch models. In the S-Models there is a colorful round retro dash with choice of red, amber and green for the type of driving preferred by the driver.
The seats have excellent lateral support and can be raised manually.
Prices have not been announced for the region but a price differential between the three and five-door models is expected. There are 13 colors and 16 wheel designs on offer.