#cooper

MINI’s new Goodwood model was unveiled at the world-famous Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in California this week. The MINI Goodwood is an exclusive special edition which has been produced in close collaboration with the Rolls-Royce Motor Cars design team.

In continuing their special edition Coopers named after London boroughs, districts, streets and landmarks, MINI has announced the Soho Edition available to the Mini Cooper Hatch and Convertible and the Cooper D Hatch and Convertible.

Specially designed for the Chinese market, luxury luggage manufacturer Tumi has teamed up with MINI to make two “MINI Goes Tumi” models. The unique MINI concepts are coated in different paint schemes, Alpha (black) for one and Alpha Brave (Hunter Green) for the other, with contrasting highlights on the exterior. The rest of the cars are also inspired by Tumi colors, from the tires to the grille to the trunk lid.

MINI has been know to have fun with their commercials and they definitely pulled it off with their newest ad.  In this latest commercial entitled “Another Day. Another Adventure” the coupe tours around through Iceland, Rio De Janiero and Hong Kong in less than a week.

AC Schnitzer is laying claim that they sport the world’s fastest MINI, with their John Cooper Works-based AC Schnitzer Eagle. And while you’re probably thinking AC Schnitzer set some record on the quarter mile or out at Nurburgring, their test bed was actually the famed Grand Prix Circuit at Hockenheim. It was there that their Eagle laid waste to the track, clocking in a 1:13.341 lap time.

Not to be outdone by the Rolls-Royce influenced MINI Cooper Goodwood, Vilner has put their own spin on a luxury-inspired Cooper S by outfitting it with Bentley-styled interior. The Bulgarian tuner decided to completely revamp the MINI’s interior with double-diamond stitched brown Nappa leather and Alcantara on the seats, headliner, door panels, center console and dash.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has upgraded their investigation into 60,000 the 2004-2005 MINI Cooper, regarding power steering issues linked to three fires.

As part of MINI‘s 2011 Cooper lineup and debuts at the upcoming Geneva Motor Show, an announcement has been made that a John Cooper Works Tuning Kit will be available for the MINI Cooper S, MINI Cooper S Clubman and MINI Cooper S Convertible. The tuning kit will raise horsepower to 200-hp and torque to 186 ft-lbs, with an overboost function that increases torque even more to 199 ft-lbs.

If you still think that matte black paint jobs are just a fad, think again. MINI has decided to release a limited edition factory package that can be added onto any Cooper variant, turning it from a hip, trendy little car to a stealthy and sleek trendy little car. Dubbed the Mat Edition, MINI will be limiting the package to 250 vehicles – except they’ll only be available in France.

With the slogan “Always Open” MINI unveiled the convertible versions of it’s successful second generation Cooper and Cooper S models.

The Cooper will come with a 118hp four-cylinder engine and the Cooper S with a 172hp powerplant.

Impressively MINI claims a 22 percent reduction in emissions and fuel compared to the past convertible model.

The last Convertible version of the MINI Cooper was a sales success with 164,000 units sold. MINI expects equally impressive sales for the second gen ‘vert after the new coupe models posted surprisingly high sales during 2008.

In fact MINI sold roughly 232,000 units last year (with the US accounting for roughly one-quarter of those). This gave the company a sales growth of 29 percent over 2007.

For the 2010 MINI Convertible, MINI is putting its “Always Open” motto into practice with the inclusion of an “Always Open timer.” This fun gimmick will allow drivers to keep track of how long they drive with the top down.

Official release after the jump: