Five-door Mini Cooper S caught in the act

December 11, 2013 by Alastair Sloane

Spy-Shots of Mini-Cooper

Spy-Shots of Mini-Cooper

Spy-Shots of Mini

Spy-Shots of Mini

The first picture of a five-door Mini was a grainy image taken inside the carmaker’s paint shop (See: Spied! A five-door Mini decked out for paint job).

Now photographers from picture agency Automedia have caught a camouflaged five-door Mini Cooper S near parent company BMW’s headquarters in Germany.

There was a time when the Mini was exactly that – a three-door of sorts, if you counted the small boot lid.

But ever since BMW got its hands on the British brand at the start of the new century and churned out the first modern Mini, the range has been constantly expanding.

The first rumours of a five-door Mini came after the Countryman was launched. Now the first photographic proof of a prototype is here before your eyes.

Automedia says the five-door variant isn’t expected to hit the European market until 2015. It says it has a slightly longer wheelbase and smaller front doors than the three-door Mini. There is also talk of a convertible, says Automedia.

Both the three- and five-door hatchbacks ride on the BMW Group’s newly developed front- and all-wheel drive UKL1 modular platform on which BMW will also base the 1-Series Gran Turismo compact MPV.

The five-door will share engine options with the Mini range, now made up of a new family of turbocharged three-cylinder petrol and diesel units and a boosted 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine for the premium Cooper S and John Cooper Works cars.

If you are in a position to shell out upwards of NZ$600,000 for the 60^thanniversary Porsche 911 S/T or optional Porsche 911 S/T Heritage, you’ll no doubt want the signature titanium watch that goes with it. That’s how Porsche figures it anyway. Or, if you want the watch you’ll need to get the car. Both the car and the watch are limited to 1963 units, the year the original 911 model broke cover. The watch – Chronograph 1 911 S/T and Chronograph 1 911 S/T Heritage – and the car carry matching edition numbers. The watch is priced at $US13,500, or around $NZ22,200. The car, says Porsche NZ, starts at $NZ608,000. A “strictly limited number” will go into production for NZ early next year.

Eight European Union countries are pushing to weaken new EU emissions limits for cars, saying they are overly ambitious and unrealistic for carmakers to hit. The eight countries – France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – said in a joint paper that parts of the proposed Euro 7 regulation, including curbs on exhaust pipe emissions, should be scrapped entirely. They said the limits would force carmakers to invest in improving exhaust emissions performance, money which would be better spent on developing zero-emission vehicles. Taken together, the countries would have enough votes to block the proposal.

A go-anywhere EV concept for the US military uses an onboard 12kW diesel generator to top up the batteries on the move. The all-wheel-drive has 800-volt technology and a 200kWh battery pack to power three electric motors, two in the rear and one up front. Claimed output is 745kW/15,590Nm, or 1000hp and 11,500 ft-lb of torque. The four-seater was developed by the defence division of General Motors and is based on the platform of the Hummer SUV. It rides on Fox performance shock absorbers and 37-inch tyres and comes with “exceptional” approach and departure angles for off-road mobility. Maximum range using the generator to keep things ticking over is said to be around 500km.

The outside temperature in Midland, Texas, was 40.5C when staff at the local office of the US National Weather Service set out to show the cabin of a closed car can literally get baking hot in summer. They mixed up a batch of chocolate chip cookies and laid them on the car’s dashboard – the surface of which showed a temperature of 87.7C. A little over four hours later the cookies were ready to eat. “Even though ours weren’t golden brown, we can confirm that they are done and delicious,” the staff wrote on Facebook.