MotoringFile sees the 2014 manual MINI Cooper as posing a dilemma for BMW. Nevertheless, it reviews the vehicle and concludes:
So the new Cooper is efficient, quick and high advanced. What’s not to love. The styling will be a tough pill to swallow for some diehard R53 or R56 fans. But I suspect most will quickly get over that when seeing the car in person. In fact I’d go so far as to say that most of the general car buying public will barely notice the difference between generations until they see them side by side.
In many ways this is the first BMW MINI. The first car to be produced totally in house by BMW and at the typically high standards that the company has been known for. Those standards are evident at every touch-point and at every engineering decision. While the F56 certainly isn’t perfect, the seismic shift that MINI has made with the new Cooper over the previous is impossible to ignore. This is a car that any MINI owners simply must drive. And we bet more than a few MCS owners might find it surprisingly appealing.
