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First drive: Upsized MINI Countryman goes on sale in SA
The latest family MINI is larger and more refined but hasn’t lost its sense of fun
The new Countryman has become so bloated it feels wrong to call it a MINI. Maybe the model name should also be written in upper case to better match its size.
The new crossover is 13cm longer and 8cm higher than its predecessor, which was already too large to be comfortably associated with a brand that built its heritage on being a tiny upstart. When the original Mini used its kart-like agility to beat larger, more powerful cars to win three Monte Carlo Rallies in the 1960s it was a David vs Goliath performance, but the Countryman has now become a relative Goliath itself with a length of 4.4m and a weight of more than 1.5 tonnes...
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