Good Day Sunshine: The 2025 MINI Cooper S Hardtop 4 Door

At first, I wondered if I should have just rolled with it.

My wife and I really needed a getaway, so after a bit of hotel room rate shopping, I landed on the ideal three-night break, just before the long Memorial Day weekend, on California's Central Coast---specifically in beautiful San Simeon.

Map of route to and from San Simeon (courtesy Google Maps).

The problem was that I was booked in the 2025 Ford F-150 Lightning, an electric. And while I like opportunities to prove EVs are road-trip ready, there were a couple of issues.

One: I'm conservative with EVs. I recharge at 25%. The Lightning's EPA-estimated range per charge is 320 miles. So I'd be looking to recharge every 240. That meant this weekend would involve a minimum of three charging stops (more if we roamed the coast, as we ended up doing), plus one after we got home.

Again, in the name of journalism, yada yada yada...but did I mention that we really needed a getaway? I didn't want (best case) 90 minutes of our time (three stops at 30 minutes each) eaten that way.

Two: The route I had chosen (especially the return leg up the Sierra Nevada foothills) was notoriously shy of DC fast chargers. If I needed one during our stay, it was 30 miles inland in Paso Robles.

So I reached out to the folks at Page One Automotive to see if I could postpone the Lightning and get something powered by dead dinosaurs. They had exactly one other vehicle available---a 2025 MINI Cooper S Hardtop 4 Door. I said yes, and then began second-guessing myself.

Well, I shouldn't have. Turns out, as small as it is, the MINI Cooper S is a great roadtrip car.

The MINI is all-new for 2025, with 201 horsepower and 221 lb-ft of torque from a 2.0-liter TwinPower turbo. That's a bump of 12 horsepower and 14 lb-ft from the 2024 model I reviewed last summer.

The six-speed manual is out with the old. The only transmission available is the 7-speed Steptronic dual-clutch automatic, and I'm not complaining. Responsive, always in the right gear and responsible for a bump in EPA-estimated fuel economy from 31 mpg combined city/highway to 32. The individual estimates are 28 city/39 highway.

I didn't zero out the trip computer before we hit the road, but I put at least 1,000 of the just under 2,000 miles on the car, so I'm gonna take at least some of the credit for this one MINI Cooper S getting 36.9 mpg.

Beyond that, the handling is as sharp and precise as you'd expect, and the interior is quieter than I expected. The only downsides are bumps from uneven pavement (you can only do so much with a short wheelbase) and tire noise from bad pavement.

If we'd just been taking our luggage, we'd have been fine with the 13.1 cubic feet in the back, but we were also bringing beach chairs and a beach shelter. No sweat. I folded down the rear seats and the resulting 40 cubic feet was more than enough.

The big surprise was the comfort. Space isn't an issue. MINIs have always been a breeze for taller drivers. I'm only 5'11", and six-foot-four James Garner fit in, drove and loved his 60s-era MINI Cooper, as well as a 2002 MINI Cooper he owned in the last decade of his life.

But it's not just fit, it's comfort. This getaway included two seven-hour drives and I can report the front seats are all-day comfortable. Zero fatigue.

The interior re-do is a matter of taste. I'm warming up to it. What it loses in character to the last-gen MINI's mix of gauges, screens, knobs and toggles, it makes up for in the feeling of spaciousness and simplicity.

The base price of the 2025 MINI Cooper S Hardtop 4 Door is $35,600 ($36,595 including destination). As of this writing, tariffs are unclear. The MINI line is assembled in the United Kingdom, with 22% of its parts coming from Germany (MINI is owned by BMW) and 0% from North America. By the time you read this, the price at your dealer could be higher (or not).

Standard equipment beyond what I've already mentioned includes power front seats (with lumbar and massage functions for the driver), dynamic cuise control with braking and speed limiter, multiple drive modes (called "experiences"), 17-inch alloy wheels, a heated steering wheel and front seats, two USB-C ports, dual-zone automatic climate control, a 60/40 split-folding rear seatback, a panoramic glass roof with wind deflector and sunshade, floormates, a 100-watt six-speaker audio system with 9.4-inch OLED touchscreen, wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, wireless device charging, a one-year trial subscription to SiriusXM 360L, a 5G wi-fi hotspot, head-up display, ambient interior lighting, LED lighting, high-beam assist, parking assist, and power heated exterior mirrors with heated rear window and heated washer jets.

There's also three years or 36,000 miles (whichever comes first) of complimentary scheduled maintenance (oil, spark plugs, brake fluid, recommended check-ups and air filter).

The configurable drive modes or "experiences" also bring a change in the display screen. These are four of them, left to right top, "Personal" and "Green", left to right bottom, "Go-Kart" and "Core". I like it, but, as usual, you can find a hot-take opposing point of view online:

Our tester had some extra-cost options...$2,700 for the Iconic Trim (active driving assistant, automatic cruise control stop & go, active drive assistant, Harman Kardon surround sound and an interior camera), and $500 for dynamic damper control.

Bottom line on the window sticker: $39,795.

Two hundred and five bucks shy of 40 grand sounds big, but the average new car is about ten grand north of that these days. And while compact cars suggest limitations, my thousand mile, three-day roadtrip in the 2025 MINI Cooper S 4 Door says otherwise. I'd gladly hit the road for a week in one of these any day.