The year 2012 sees a hive of activity for BMW in South Africa. One of these activities will involve the launch of the all-new MINI Roadster, which is of course related to the Coupe, except for the hard roof. Roadster will share identical mechanicals, engines, colours, interior features and so on with its Coupe brother. Everything except the roof.
MINI Roadster is 3.7 metres long, 1.68 metres wide, 1.39 metres high and has a wheelbase of 2.47 metres. The John Cooper Works version is slightly longer and higher. The engine is a 1.6-litre petrol that comes in three power guises. Bottom of the heap is the naturally aspirated version making 90kW and 160Nm of torque. It is said to go from 0 – 100km/h in 9.2 seconds, using 5.7 litres per 100km in average fuel. The Cooper S Roadster derivative is fitted with a turbo and kicks out 135kW and 240Nm, speeding past the 100km/h mark in 7 seconds and reaching a 227km/h top speed.
As for the JCW model, that also features the 1.6 turbo, but this time with 155kW and 260Nm, making it as powerful as the current Golf GTI. BMW says it will rush from 0 – 100km/h in 6.5 seconds, topping out at 237km/h. Mated to the Cooper and Cooper S are a choice of 6-speed manual or automatic gearboxes, while the JCW only comes in manual.
Disappointingly the soft roof is manually operated, meaning there are no electric buttons or anything of that sort to open it up. Muscle power is the way. Interior features might make up for it though, and they include optional Recaro racing seats, Harman Kardon music system, MINI Connected App for access to Facebook, Twitter etc, and Bluetooth connectivity among others.
We’ll see the MINI Roadster range on our roads before April 2012.
2 comments:
oh yeah! that's what I'm talkin about
The manual roof is too un-MINI. They're making it look like a cheap Beetle.
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