Car Throttle

Well, for one thing, it's a tongue twister.  Mini Cooper S Coupe.  Koop.  Sha-doop.  Not quite a Touareg-level mockery of the English language, sure, but still not something that rolls off the tongue.  But there's more to the odd case of the Cooper Coupe than just the name. If you can't readily tell, what we have here is a Cooper Hardtop with only two seats, a chopped-off windshield, a greenhouse shaped like a backwards baseball hat, a pair of spoilers (one fixed), and not a whole excess of headroom.  If you love Minis for their faux-British charm, you'll love the Coupe.  If you hate them for how purposefully "styled" they are, you'll probably have an aneurysm.  Then get back in your Grand National and mumble about "cars

For those who love the idea of the Mini Coupe but don't want a roof that looks like a baseball cap, I bring great news. Mini has released images of a new convertible version of the coupe called the Roadster. The new Roadster has a fabric roof, just like in the bigger Mini Convertible, but unlike it's bigger brother, the fabric roof folds away into its own storage compartment instead of lying on the back end. The roof is semi-automatic meaning that to put it down you would unlock a latch yourself and then the roof will fold away by itself. There are other differences with its bigger convertible sibling. The Roadster sits 20mm closer to the ground, the

On the back of Mini getting brand placement time in Taio Cruz' latest video "Hangover", the historic German company appear to be continuing to spread their seed all over the industry. Whether it's Jamaican reggae-inspired beats in Sean Paul or certain big-name American producers in Timbaland, the dynamic company is trying to gain mass market appeal and visibility-wise, the strategy certainly seems to be paying off. It's no wonder then that Mini felt the need to strike a deal with Sony Music and the mastermind himself, Simon Cowell, in getting a Cooper onto the set of Labrinth's latest video "Earthquake". Just in case you've been out of the loop, Labrinth recently got himself signed to SyCo and Cowell's notorious record label which also houses the

The brand new Mini Cooper Coupe certainly turned heads yesterday when it debuted at Frankfurt Motor Show 2011. An homage back to 1966's Mini Marcos coupe, this strictly two-seater model certainly has the flare and simplicity to welcome it into Mini's popular current range. The car actually comes in 4 trims which range from £16,640 right through to £23,795. These include the bottom of the range Cooper, Cooper S, Cooper SD and the high performance John Cooper Works vehicle akin to the variants found in the rest of Mini's vehicles. From the front on, the similarities between the Coupe and it's older brother Cooper are noticeable, namely the large rounded headlights and the open mouth grille. Around the back and things start to get a little

I always make it out to Raleigh's Cars & Coffee event the first Saturday of every month. It's always worth it, even though I abhor waking up early, because there's always awesome stuff to see.  A lot of the same cars show up, so I won't show pictures of stuff you've already seen - for those you can check previous Cars & Coffee coverage here, here, and here. For starters, here is one of 337 Porsche 959's ever built, which was Porsche's rolling technical showcase that blew everything else out of the water in the 1980's, and set the standard for supercar performance.  None were ever imported to the US; it's likely this one has been fitted with the Canepa Design engine

What do you call a big Mini?  A Maxi? It's really more like a mediumini - although the Countryman is far and away the biggest car to ever wear a Mini badge, it's still not that big of a car.  In fact, by American standards it's still smaller than a lot of the stuff we buy in bulk.  We consider a Ford Escape a "small" SUV, but it still dwarfs the Countryman by a wide margin - although the Escape's wheelbase is only about an inch longer, overall size is about 11" longer than the Countryman, it's about an inch wider, and it's almost 7" taller. So if a Mini isn't small, what's the point?  Isn't that their USP?  Isn't that why they're Minis?  I suppose

BMW has been steadily expanding the MINI lineup over the past few years. The return of the original model has been an incredible success, and been a way for BMW to grow volume globally toward the lower end of the market. The Clubman wagon and Countryman crossover have helped to further expand appeal. he Coupe comes with a goal to further reach out style conscious customers. The Coupe model was first previewed by a Concept, and the production model looks basically the same. Official wraps were taken off the MINI Coupe the other day. Now, MINI isn't wasting any time in announcing pricing information for the Coupe model and the rest of the 2012 lineup. The MINI Coupe starts at $22,000 for the base model,

We've known Mini was coming out with 2-seater derivatives of the Cooper for a while. We saw concept cars - the Coupe and Roadster - at the Frankfurt show in 2009, and we've been seeing spy photos of lightly disguised prototypes pretty constantly since then.  Mini debuted production images and technical details of the Cooper Coupe yesterday, and now we know what it'll look like and how fast it'll be. The Cooper Coupe is the first car under the revived Mini brand with room for only two passengers - so Mini is expanding their lineup both ways, with the (relatively speaking) huge Countryman 5-door pseudo-SUV on the top, and the diminuitive Coupe (and presumably, the soon-to-come Roadster) on the other end of the spectrum. The Cooper

I just never knew. I was unaware we had a large population of classic British vehicles in the Raleigh area; I suppose there are people nostalgic for the 60's and 70's everywhere, and Raleigh is a pretty affluent area, but wow!  Triumphs, MG's, Jaguars, and Mini's of all sorts congregated today upon the North Hills shopping center, an upscale outdoor mall in the North Raleigh area.  With cars ranging from MG TF's all the way to a brand-new Mini Crossman, there were a wide range of British vehicles to gaze upon.  Here are some of the more interesting ones. At any British car show, chances are the most common vehicle you'll see there will be the ubiquitous MGB.  It was the car that really

Finally! A proper mini sized MINI. The MINI Rocketman Concept was recently revealed at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show and I believe they got the essence right this time. Prior to this pocket rocket, BMW MINI seemed to be dishing out larger and larger ‘MINI’ cars like the recently launched Countryman. I suppose they’ve finally realized that there are a lot of people out there that want to relive the original MINI size and feel. You know, that Tardis-like feeling you get (look at one from the outside and then sit inside one and you’ll get the picture), that quirky steering wheel position, the bouncy ride contributed to by the extremely short wheelbase (as well as the hydrolastic suspension) and its extremely small car handling