zzdcar
Home
/
Reviews
/
Trucks
/
The 2017 Mini Countryman Is Beefy As Hell Now To Annihilate Nature And Sales
The 2017 Mini Countryman Is Beefy As Hell Now To Annihilate Nature And Sales-May 2024
2024-02-19 EST 22:13:14

Meet the 2017 . Mini’s had this thing running around in mule form since forever, and now we finally get to see how it’s gone from cute to butch. And Mini desperately needs you to buy it.

See, the Countryman crossover was long Mini’s top-selling model, because at the end of the day we Americans can’t deign ourselves to buy small cars. We’re too busy carrying home bulk groceries as we imagine ourselves crushing nature into submission.

But the first-gen Countryman got old from having been on the market nearly a decade, and Mini’s sales have flagged as cheap gas lured Americans from the rest of their small-car lineup.

The Countryman’s gonna fix all that! It’s rugged and tough and ready to be the SUV you’ve dreamed off, America. It’s not smiling. It’s scowling. It’s here to plunder and conquer the wild frontier, or at least project the image that you do that to everyone else, who also happen to be crossover owners.

This is the biggest Mini yet, easily. Yet like the smaller Hardtop and Countryman models, power comes from either a 1.5-liter turbo three with 134 horsepower or a 2.0-liter turbo four with 189 horsepower. Both are surprisingly punchy, but can they carry these cars’ 3,600 pound curb weight, as it is when equipped as a Cooper S with available ALL4 all-wheel drive?

Also for the first time ever, the crossover can be had as a plug-in hybrid, the Cooper S E ALL4. That car has a hybrid-electric three-cylinder engine that can go full electric up to 77 mph and with a range of up to 24 miles before it needs to use gas. Total system power is 221 HP and 284 lb-ft of torque there, which sounds fun.

Does this big bad beef boy Cooper do it for you? Expect to see more at the LA Auto Show next month.

Comments
Welcome to zzdcar comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Trucks
Deer Flies Directly Into Pickup As Its Prospective Buyer Arrives
Deer Flies Directly Into Pickup As Its Prospective Buyer Arrives
No square inch of the Northeast is safe from deer, as video out of New Jersey shows. A deer, tearing through the suburbs, managed to leap over a Pontiac Vibe and Honda CR-V before landing on the bedside of a 2007 Chevy Silverado — just as a prospective buyer arrived...
May 16, 2025
The Nissan Navara Was The Overdue Frontier We Deserved A Decade Ago
The Nissan Navara Was The Overdue Frontier We Deserved A Decade Ago
gets dunked on for letting models like the languish for years. But, the truck saw a model update well before the release of the , which is mechanically much like an with a design. Outside of the U.S., the successor to the second-generation Frontier came in 2014 with the...
May 16, 2025
The 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger Is The Hybrid Truck America Probably Needs
The 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger Is The Hybrid Truck America Probably Needs
In addition to the all-electric , the truck brand announced this week that it will also release a engine gasoline-powered hybrid version of its electric pickup, called Ramcharger. The goal here is to use the V6 engine as a generator for the electric powertrain when the 92 kWh battery...
May 16, 2025
There Was Once A Glorious Compact Chevy ZR2 Truck
There Was Once A Glorious Compact Chevy ZR2 Truck
Those who saw the meteoric rise of through the 2010s and onward probably associate the badge with the . The was Chevy’s halo midsize truck when it was released in 2016, but the ZR2 badging goes all the way to the when Chevy made the S-10 ZR2. It’s gnarly....
May 16, 2025
Ford Robbed Us Of The Old Four-Door Ranger To Give Us The Explorer Sport Trac
Ford Robbed Us Of The Old Four-Door Ranger To Give Us The Explorer Sport Trac
By definition, a big truck like a or struggles to be small. Even in its smallest, most trucky configuration — a two-door single cab — a full-size truck is relatively large and comes with a sizable bed for hauling cargo. But a small truck like the third-generation can do...
May 16, 2025
Porsche Built A 911 With Portal Axles To Go Where Unimogs Can't Reach
Porsche Built A 911 With Portal Axles To Go Where Unimogs Can't Reach
No car has ever driven at higher altitude than this 992-generation Porsche 911 Carrera 4S with portal axles. On Saturday the Porsche crew, led by racing driver Romain Dumas, reached the highest peak of the west ridge of the Ojos del Salado volcano in Chile, . That’s the tallest...
May 16, 2025
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.zzdcar.com All Rights Reserved