Now offering five doors to get people into cars

I wasn’t sure about whether a four-door Mini made sense.

Sure, I understand that the dealers want what sells to more people, and in the U.S. market that means extra doors. So this Mini has four doors for people, and one in back to the cargo space, thus, the Mini Five Door.

To me the question is who do Mini drivers evolve into when they move on up the automotive food chain? My bet is a lot of them evolve into small-crossover drivers, which is the logical step up for someone who enjoys driving a small car but whose lives may have grown into needing more space.

For many Mini owners, being true to the classic is probably important. For them there will never be anything but a Mini, which has two doors, wheels at each corner of the car and a big round dial in the middle of the dashboard. Those are the defining elements of the Mini. The new Mini Hardtop Five Door is the second body variant of the new Mini Hardtop and does maintain those traditions.

What is probably most important is that it still looks like a classic Mini, in spite of the extra doors. Interestingly, I am using the word classic to refer to the new Mini that drew upon the original Mini. Now as the brand broadens, it is the smallest twodoor model, now called the Hardtop, which can officially — to me — be called a “classic.”

When you look at the Mini Five door model, you still know it is a Mini. Yes, it has a roof line which emphasizes the rear of the car and its length, it is also a bit taller, but the proportions stay pretty close to the original’s, so that’s a plus.

The Mini five-door has a wheelbase that’s expanded by 2.9 in. and its body is 6.3 in. longer, compared to the new Mini Hardtop. The wheelbase has been extended 2.9 in. to 101.1 in. and the track is the same as the two-door model.

The biggest value of the extra length is in the back seat. Officials say that with just more than a half-aninch more headroom, and the interior 1.8-in. wider at the shoulder, three people can sit in the back seat. Adding in the four people doors, my guess the car’s interior designers made certain that at least one — and possibly two — child seats will fit. If you’re going to evolve a little coupe into a four-door, attracting family buyers must be a big part of the reasoning.

And the cargo space in the back is half a cubic foot larger at 9.2 cu.ft. No, this isn’t much, but you can use a roof rack if it’s essential to carry four people and more cargo than that.

Power for the Cooper trim line is a three-cylinder engine generating 134hp and 162 lb.-ft. of peak torque. The output of the four-cylinder engine in the Cooper S is 189-hp. and 207 lb.-ft. of peak torque. The idea is to find balance between driving fun and fuel consumption. The pair of Mini engines gets EPA fuel ratings of 30 mpg city and 42 mpg highway for the three-cylinder motor, and the four-cylinder comes in at 24 mpg city and 34 mpg highway.

There are two transmissions choices, a six-speed manual and six-speed automatic. Both do a fine job, but in this small a car with these small engines, having the manual transmission allows you more choice in managing that power-versus-mileage matrix.

Mini’s popular “go-kart” handling remains, although without quite the precision of the shorter two-door model. With specifically tuned Dynamic Damper Control this car’s adjustable dampers are an option well worth having. This helps the single-joint spring strut axle in the front and the multilink rear axle to smooth things out and keep the tires flat on the road.

After a week in the 2015 Mini Hardtop Five Door I discovered that I forgot I was in the longer four-door model very soon after I got behind the wheel. Of course I wasn’t able to see the extra doors, and that probably helped.

But the car’s handling response was slower than the two-door and the extra size slowed it down slightly, it felt enough like the twodoor that it was a moot point.

Maybe on paper or the race track it isn’t as quick, but I don’t see many of these getting numbers painted on their doors for the racetrack. In reasonably normal street driving, there isn’t a lot of difference. Since that’s how people who actually own their cars drive most of the time it is probably a moot point.

I liked the interior, although there’s not a lot of difference in the front seats in terms of space. While there is a big dial in the middle of the instrument panel, BMW (yes, they make Mini) bowed to popular pressure and moved the road speed, engine speed and fuel supply onto the steering-wheel-column instrument cluster. The instrument panel’s center dial is actually the typical climate, audio and infotainment controls.

This is probably another good move by Mini, and although the whining among the purists hasn’t been quite as loud as with the Countryman and other models not meeting their “view” of what a Mini should be. Granted the purists don’t have to make a living manufacturing or selling the objects of their attention, so they can be “pure” about them.

The price of the extra two doors is also pretty much a moot point, as pricing for the Hardtop Five Door is comparable to the original. The Cooper begins life with an MSRP of $21,700 and the more powerful Cooper S gets going from $25,100.

In truth this is a model that will certainly expand the interest in the car since there are so many who automatically rule out a twodoor vehicle. Remember that child-seat capability?