GREENVILLE, S.C. — If you explained the 2025 Mini Cooper S 5-Door to me, I wouldn’t have liked it. Futuristic styling with LED Union Jack taillights, no manual transmission, a minimalist interior dominated by a giant round screen, and multiple modes selected via a switch labelled experiences.
But I didn’t have this car explained to me. BMW invited us down to their annual “test fest” in South Carolina, so I jumped in a car and went to go play in the beautiful roads around Greenville. This was the car I jumped into, and without having time to let cynicism preemptively sour what Mini’s done here, I found myself feeling rather fondly for it.
Yes, this Mini isn’t very miniature anymore. Yes, it’s pretty far removed from the scrappy little car it used to be. And yes, they’ve decided to lean into it. It feels like a futuristic Mini, with a slick, uncluttered cabin because that’s all it needs—and it’s set up such that, very much like original original Mini, anyone can get in and start enjoying it immediately, whether it’s your first or 15th car.
On approach, the 2025 Mini Cooper is instantly recognizable as a Mini. It’s all new for this year, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it. Its updates are largely subtle, with larger, more detailed LED lighting elements, a slightly larger greenhouse, and an array of cute colours and fun wheel designs—now colour-keyed to match the new gold exterior trim on higher-spec models like this one.
The cabin space of the new Mini is lovely, with a signature eccentric style that matches the exterior’s retro-futurism motif. It’s thoughtfully laid out, and once you’ve found the centrally mounted ignition switch, everything else is pretty straightforward. To its left is the P-R-N-D rocker switch, and to its right is the aforementioned experiences switch that toggles between a multitude of different drive modes and interior aesthetics. They’re shown on the 9.4-inch circular touch display perched directly above.
Like its corporate cousins at BMW, the experiences are tied into drive feel tweaks, matched interior ambient lighting, and even soundscapes for some. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but they’re actually quite charming and imbue some meaningful personality into the otherwise quite minimalist space. Once you get over the oddity of its circular layout, it’s quite easy to use and presents really well, especially with the optional dash-mounted reflective display acting as a gauge cluster. By the way, this too mirrors the experience aesthetic.
Everything in the cabin feels of quality, and they’ve been clever about material choices to brighten up the cabin. The third steering wheel spoke is a strap with a colour-keyed weave pattern, the upper dash and doors are swathed in a textured and illuminated fabric, and the centre console has a matched strap to open a storage compartment and support your phone in the wireless charger. There’s lots of little flourishes that add a hint of art-deco to the minimalist futurism.
At a glance, this Cooper S 5-Door tester looks to be the same size as its more traditional three-door counterpart, but it actually has a three-inch-longer wheelbase to increase rear seat room from “negligible” in the 3-Door to “marginal” here. At six-feet tall, I could sit behind myself, but not exactly comfortably. Which is fine; Mini offers even-less-mini Minis for those that need more space. The 5-Door is a good option for those that might need back seats in a pinch for short trips around town, or for getting the kids to school in something cooler-looking than a Countryman.
One of the most glaring omissions from the cabin is absence of a shifter, or a third pedal—the manual transmission is gone, replaced with a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic on all models. Curiously, it (at least on this one) has no provisions for manual shifting of any kind, as there are no paddles behind the steering wheel, and the little gear selector switch on the dashboard isn’t going to cut it, no matter what.
Despite this, it handles itself admirably, making the most of the 2.0-litre turbo-four with 201 ponies and 221 pound-feet of torque. [Nathan originally put “twistahedrons” here, which doesn’t quite make as much sense as “pound-feet.” But it sounds funny, so I’ll leave it here. —Ed.] It’s punchy and responsive, sounds meaty enough to mean business, and scoots from zero to 100 km/h in about six seconds—healthy for a little city car. More importantly, the Cooper S 5-Door still handles like a Mini, with excellent steering, good feedback, and athletic reflexes from the chassis. Flinging this around the winding roads outside of Greenville was the most fun I had all week.
In pursuit of modernism and minimalism, there’s a lot missing here. It’s not the original Austin Mini of 60 years ago, or even the first BMW-stewarded Mini of 20-ish years ago. It’s a new Mini for a new day, and apparently that’s a day where we’ve forgotten what gears are and how to use them. But the 2025 Mini Cooper S 5-Door certainly hasn’t lost sight of the charm that put it on the map—it’s a still a fun, quirky little icon of a car that punches above its weight and makes driving fun. Just don’t think about it too hard, and let it be the happy little puppy of a car it wants to be.
Pricing for the 2025 Mini Cooper S 5-Door starts at $40,990; it goes up to $47,590 as-tested for the car shown, and it’s available now. While we there, Mini also took the wraps off the new 2025 Cooper S Convertible, which should hit dealers next spring. Beyond just being a more fun open-air varietal, they’ve also brought back the Open-O-Meter that topless Minis used to have. It measures the amount of time spent enjoying the top down, which is another one of those fun features that sounds like a gimmick, but ends being loved. We’re looking forward to spending more time with both of these cars on home soil soon.
