Mini unveils loud, expensive special edition
MINI has brought out a new special edition for the American market based on the John Cooper Works Hardtop which stands out for three very good reasons -- its colour, its price and its name.
Firstly, the paint the car is finished in is actually unique to this model, which may or may not be a good thing, depending on your personal opinion.
Without skirting around the issue, it’s orange. And it has to be said it’s very, very orange indeed. The head of Mini’s product planning and aftersales department says the paint “is a bold colour historically used to make great feats of engineering and aerospace design stand out.”
You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to work out that the feat of engineering being referred to there is the San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge because the colour is called International Orange, which is the name of the paint used on the bridge. How the Golden Gate Bridge relates to the Mini is anyone’s guess, but there’s no getting away from the fact it’s a very striking color for a car.
The colour also plays a large part in the second thing that’s so noticeable about this special edition Mini, which is the length of its name. The car in question is called the 2019 Mini John Cooper Works Hardtop International Orange Edition, and that’s quite a mouthful.
Something else that makes this car such a standout model is the amount of standard kit included, and that unfortunately means it doesn’t come cheap. At a starting price of US$40,750 (RM163,000), this is a very costly Mini.
However, a quick glance at the list of standard equipment and features shows the price actually represents really good value.—