MINI is about to reinvent itself a bit for the 2024 model year. Its new crop of cars will finally be all new, after not having a properly new vehicle for what seems like ages. These new cars will be built on BMW’s updated front-wheel drive architecture, they’ll feature new designs, new interiors, and new technology. However, they’re still very much going to look like MINIs, as evidenced by these new spy photos. (We don’t own the spy photos but they can be seen here)
In these photos, you can see the 2024 MINI 2-Door Hardtop sitting on a car carrier, wearing full camouflage, and it looks very much like a MINI. It has a very similar back end to the current car, with rectangular taillights, upright pillars, and short rear glass. It’s hard to see the front end in these photos but it also looks similar. It has bugeye headlights, a small grille, and an upright windshield.
That’s OK, though. It’s fine for MINIs to look a bit familiar, as it’s a brand whose design is so famous and iconic that changing it would actually do more harm than good. You can show a classic Mini to someone who knows next to nothing about cars and they’d know it’s a Mini. That’s brand recognition you don’t want to mess with. Especially since Frank Stephenson did such a good job designing the new MINI for BMW back in 1999. Lightning doesn’t strike like that twice.
Plus, for these new MINIs, design changes aren’t really the name of the game. Electrification is. MINI needs to electrify its entire lineup if it wants to be a fully electric brand by 2030. So that’s where its development dollars need to go, not to radical design changes. However, I do hope some design changes come to the interior.
MINIs are great cars to drive. They’re fun, engaging, playful, and good looking. And while their interiors are well made and screwed together properly, their designs are overly bland and their tech is subpar. Looking at MINI’s interior screens, you can tell they were made that way on the cheap. And everything feels very claustrophobic inside. So I hope MINI is able to add some light to the cabin, make it feel a bit…
