It's pretty roomy for me if I am driving and a front passenger. But, need to get people in the back, forget it.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
How big do you think your car engine needs to be?
- Thread starter neiltc13
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
It's pretty roomy for me if I am driving and a front passenger. But, need to get people in the back, forget it.
I think you hit it on the head. Roomy for how small it is. It is really small and from what I can see and I think I have sat in one in the drivers seat and it was way to small for me to be able to stand it for more than a short hop.
The Mini cooper is REALLY roomy. Heck I sat in one and feel in love. It had an insane amount of room in the drivers seat and a heck of a lot more than my Sentra. I could see myself driving it long distance.
But note I am only talking about my driver sit. Heck I plan on getting a mini and it will be a 2 seater with a lot of cargo room that can in a pinch carry 4.
The New Beetle will never be anything more than an inferior Golf. When they put the engine in the rear and send drive to the back wheels (like Porsche intended), then we can talk.
My new car has four wheels, and there's some sort of noisy metal contraption in the front of it. All I know is that when I push my foot on the small pedal on the right, it moves forward. 
Small town here, not that hard to figure out in my case
The station I liked to use often had loyalty program bonuses for gas purchases for $30 or more. I'd have to be sucking fumes to get to that point. One time it was like 10x points.... I was so desperate I offered to top up someone else's tank to get a couple of extra $$ .... But I was the only one there, and they wouldn't let me pre-purchase my $30 and use what I couldn't fit to start filling someone else's tank when they came in. sigh. 10x points. Never seen that offer come 'round again.
In profile, it's much more reminiscent of the original isn't it. Steeper rake of the windscreen has helped it's cause. Personally I really like it up to the B-pillar, from then on though... it's a little ho-hum. Especially that spoiler. Didn't like it on the original TT, don't like it on this. If the aero's so bad that it needs one, then at least hide it at speeds below which it has no effect.
That's because MINI's are enormous. Nothing mini about them.
Had they not bottled it with the up! platform, this would've been entirely achievable too.
Technically power is simply torque x rpm. So to get more power you can increase torque (engine size) or rpm (piston speed). And generally it's hard to do both at once. But, I totally know what you mean.
However, my ideal engine would be a 2.0 liter V12 with 4 turbochargers. 75mm bore, 37.5 stroke. NA it would (theoretically) push 500HP, with the right turbos you could push that even more. And the best part, it would rev to 16,000RPM. Imagine 3 cbr600rr engines (with better bore x stroke ratios) cobbled together, with a handful of turbochargers thrown on.
Use different sized turbos to keep lag down, and tweak the cams to get power across the board. Strap it to a sequential 6-speed, and throw it in a sub-2000lb car. That's the only thing I need. Haha.
Now, all I have to do is start shaping some foam, and get the sand-casting ready...
Just big enough to go over some mountains and cruise at 120 km/h. That's all I want. Hell, if we had decent train travel in Canada, I wouldn't own a car at all...we only use ours for out-of-city trips and whenever I need to haul something big-ish.
I've never sat in a Mini Cooper - I have sat in a past coworker's old Mini (right hand drive tot, it was weird going to what's usually the drivers' side to get in) and that thing was tiny. I guess that's how it got the name
The Cooper is about the size of my GTI, and the GTI looks small but once you get in, you realize it's quite roomy. More often I'm hauling stuff rather than people, but you can fit a ton of crap back there. I was in Chicago a few weeks before moving out of the parents' house into my own apartment, and decided to stop at Ikea before leaving to pick up some decent looking furniture on the cheap (since we don't have an Ikea in St. Louis) and was surprised at how much flat pack furniture I could fit back there.
Whenever I'm in Europe, I frequently see families driving around in Golfs and Minis and other similarly sized cars - you never see that in the US. Everyone here's gotta have the biggest SUV made for their family of 4
The answer of course is 2.0L, it needs to be AWD, and the turbo size depends on a number of factors.
1.5L if we go back to the monster F1 turbo days.
1.5L if we go back to the monster F1 turbo days.
The GTI is way to small for me. I could not fit in it and it did not have enough head room for me so I would never get one. Plus I could not move the seat far enough back. I just felt really really cramped in the car.I've never sat in a Mini Cooper - I have sat in a past coworker's old Mini (right hand drive tot, it was weird going to what's usually the drivers' side to get in) and that thing was tiny. I guess that's how it got the name
The Cooper is about the size of my GTI, and the GTI looks small but once you get in, you realize it's quite roomy. More often I'm hauling stuff rather than people, but you can fit a ton of crap back there. I was in Chicago a few weeks before moving out of the parents' house into my own apartment, and decided to stop at Ikea before leaving to pick up some decent looking furniture on the cheap (since we don't have an Ikea in St. Louis) and was surprised at how much flat pack furniture I could fit back there.
Whenever I'm in Europe, I frequently see families driving around in Golfs and Minis and other similarly sized cars - you never see that in the US. Everyone here's gotta have the biggest SUV made for their family of 4
My wife and I do road trips in my John Cooper Works all the time. We pack the hell out of the back, getting quite a bit of stuff in it.I've never sat in a Mini Cooper - I have sat in a past coworker's old Mini (right hand drive tot, it was weird going to what's usually the drivers' side to get in) and that thing was tiny. I guess that's how it got the name
The Cooper is about the size of my GTI, and the GTI looks small but once you get in, you realize it's quite roomy. More often I'm hauling stuff rather than people, but you can fit a ton of crap back there. I was in Chicago a few weeks before moving out of the parents' house into my own apartment, and decided to stop at Ikea before leaving to pick up some decent looking furniture on the cheap (since we don't have an Ikea in St. Louis) and was surprised at how much flat pack furniture I could fit back there.
Whenever I'm in Europe, I frequently see families driving around in Golfs and Minis and other similarly sized cars - you never see that in the US. Everyone here's gotta have the biggest SUV made for their family of 4
You may have seen me around St. Louis. Red/White JCW, white wheels, white/red stripes, MINI Challenge side stripes, rallye lamps.
My problem is that I serve the elderly, not counting myself, and I need extra leg room for those with hip/knee/arthritis problems.
In that service, a small V-6 serves me well, in dealing with merging in front of parallel 18-wheelers doing 120 kmh.
This extra oomph comes in handy at least once a week.
In that service, a small V-6 serves me well, in dealing with merging in front of parallel 18-wheelers doing 120 kmh.
This extra oomph comes in handy at least once a week.
Golf GTI.
GTI is synonymous with Golf GTI in the US because the Polo isn't sold in the states. In the US, it's marketed as just GTI, and there's no Golf branding on the car - the badge on the car just says GTI.
I drove a base Mini Cooper recently (road trip, about 1200 km.) The handling is great, like a little go-cart, fit and finish is pretty decent. Bit choppy on the highway, but that's to be expected with the wheelbase and suspension. Roomy inside too, although the trunk was pretty abbreviated. The things I didn't like about was the shape of the windshield (felt like I was under a visor since it dips down in the centre) and the instrumentation. Let's just say it would take me a very long time to get used to the dash and controls, if at all. Gas mileage is OK but you always want to rev the bloody thing because it sounds so fun.
