MINI owner BMW has now extended its “Sports Activity” moniker to the British-born brand. The new MINI
Paceman is being marketed as a Sports
Activity Coupe, the first of its kind in the small premium segment. Paceman is essentially a chopped-off Countryman that keeps the same number of seats but cuts
off on the number of doors.
Styling-wise the car is characterised by the same massive hexagonal front grille we’ve seen in
the Countryman - dubbed the MAXI by
yours truly due to its size – a coupe-like side profile, especially at the rear,
flared wheel arches, that helmet roof style at the back, black bumpers and chrome-surround rear lights. Despite its
size, ride height and shape, MINI insists that Paceman will still prove to supply
that go-kart like feeling to the
driver.
Inside it’s typically MINI, with that large circular centre, a rounded gear lever,
round air vents for the climate control, rounded
seats and other figures. There’s very little unique about the front end. At the back things are different of
course, due to the fact that both front and rear passengers have to use the same two doors. Loading capacity from
the 4.1 metre long Paceman increases
from 330 litres to 1 080 litres when the rear seats
are folded. A lower, normal ride height can be specified by those who prefer to
be on the same level as most other traffic.
The car comes with a range of engines, all of which already
exist in both MINI and BMW stables. For the Mzansi market we can expect the following: the normally aspirated 90kW, 160Nm Cooper Paceman. Higher than that is the Cooper S Paceman
delivering 135kW and 240Nm of torque, with a 20Nm overboost for overtaking. Both are
fitted with 1.6-litre engines, the
latter’s being turbocharged. Later we’ll see the 155kW John Cooper Works (JCW)
version. They will be driving through 6-speed
manual or 6-speed automatic gearboxes,
with MINI’s ALL4 all-wheel-drive (AWD) system made available to the
Cooper S.
New MINI Paceman is in South
Africa in 2013 and will not have any direct competitors upon its arrival.
1 comment:
is it a bird is it a suv is a Mini? No, it's PACEMAN!
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