Category: Convertibles 
Price Range: £15,995 to £19,000
Very cute, very fashionable, very well-built, very desirable.
Not that fast, not that cheap.
There was a five-month waiting list for a long time. Says it all, really.
Mini mania continues: demand shows little sign of abating for the hatchbacked Minis, and the open-topped version is one of the most desirable small cars around. The Mini Convertible is a usable four-seater with a neat electrically-folding canvas hood, and it comes in Mini One (90bhp), Cooper (115bhp) and Cooper S (170bhp) form.
It's up to £2,525 more expensive than an equivalent hard-topped Mini - though the Mini One Convertible compares well to the likes of the Vauxhall Tigra and Nissan Micra C+C - but the success of the hatchback has shown that money is no object when it comes to ordering, specifying and equipping BMW's baby. Plenty of owners are spending over £20,000 on their Minis, and with the Cooper S convertible starting from £17,595, the £25,000-plus Mini Convertible is in sight once you've added a few options such as metallic paint, cloth/leather or full leather upholstery, sat nav, air conditioning, a wind deflector, front fog lights, xenon lamps, a six-CD autochanger... and that's before you even look at personalising the exterior with decals, different alloys and any accessories.
New Mk2 versions of the hatchback Minis are to be launched in September 2006, and a Traveller mini-estate is on the way too, but these Convertible models will stay in production unchanged for a couple of years yet.
Latest Readers' Drives About the MINI Cooper Convertible
wrote on 14 09 2007
wrote on 18 08 2006