2011 Mini Countryman - Car and Driver
There’s a theme to the new Mini Countryman: four. Four passenger doors, four-wheel-drive, four seats, four cylinders, four wheels—okay, maybe that last one’s a bit of a stretch. Of course, nothing embodies that theme as well as Bobby Orr’s legendary 1970 Stanley Cup goal—he wore number four, and it was scored 40 seconds into the fourth period of game four to win Boston’s fourth Stanley Cup—but the four-door Countryman is... And it’s an effort to lure in more buyers to the Mini brand, by recapturing former owners who have outgrown the diminutive brand’s lineup and by adding new customers who previously dismissed other Minis for being too small. But if you’re worried that Mini has sold out its identity in search of a bigger market with the Countryman, well, fear not. The big Mini is over 16 inches longer than the Mini Cooper hardtop but still 3. 6 inches shorter than a Volkswagen Golf. And more important, the Countryman still feels like a Mini. Supersizing It. The Countryman is to the rest of the Mini lineup as anything American is to its European counterpart. There are some subtle changes, like the oval headlamps that have been squared off, but the Countryman fits in visually with the rest of the Mini family. Oval-shaped door cutouts like those in the smaller Minis are stretched out along the front and rear doors. Source: www.caranddriver.com
