Longtime Subaru driver here. I ordered a Solterra minutes after you could. (The Solterra is a rebadged Toyota EV, with a few changes for Subaru's customers.) Two months ago I ordered an Iconic SE; its colour is Island Blue. I wish I'd known about the SE earlier this year. While I've admired the MINI Cooper before, somewhere I got the impression that the BMW powertrain couldn't be trusted. But what could go wrong with an EV, besides the wheels falling off? The MINI sales guy said to expect it in February or March. He said that a Signature trim could arrive two months sooner. (He was really pushing the Signature trim.) In the past two months in North Texas, I've seen a total of ten MINIs, including, I think, one Red SE parked at a Mosque. Two that I saw yesterday were looking forlorn because they were parked at Sprouts about 50' away from each other. Very sad. (It'll be hard to break my habit of parking next to other Subarus.) And in the last two months I've received more mail from MINI about my SE order than I have from Subaru about my Solterra order since April. I'm looking forward to receiving the SE. (Though, it was ordered with no demo available. And I've never actually sat in a MINI.) I'm just hoping that the Dollar/Pound rates remain favorable for MINI, and that the Oxford plant doesn't see any power shortages this winter. A YouTube video on MINI production in England looked great. Lots of automation. In contrast, a Subaru of Indiana video that I recently saw looked lackluster. The MINI production workers all seemed a bit happier than their American Subaru counterparts. Anyway, a quick question. I'm a ham radio operator who occasionally likes to put magnetic antennas on the roof of my car. Are the bonnet and roof of the MINI Cooper aluminium, or steel?
I'm not sure about the metal used on my SE and haven't used any of my ham gear in a long time, but I would be more worried about the electrical systems causing interference with ham radio bands.
The roof and bonnet are magnetic as are the doors and fenders. The bumpers, spoiler at the top of the hatch and the electric charging port cover are not.
Well, maybe they are happier now - but they were on strike earlier this year: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-61091964
That wasn't Mini, it was a logistics contractor that was impacted and it was little to no interruption.
Whereabouts in North Texas are you? If you’re anywhere near Plano/Frisco/Allen/Richardson/Carrollton and you saw a white silver with black roof, wheels and yellow mirror caps it was probably ours… Can appreciate why you’d go for the Subaru badge but as EV the Toyota/Subaru offering is pretty poor for the money especially as an all new dedicated platform…
I'm in Plano. I'll keep an eye out for your vehicle; I don't recall any Mini Coopers with yellow mirror caps. I agree with your sentiment regarding the Toyotaru offering, but those of us who made a reservation for the Solterra didn't have any specs when we made our reservations. If the 'wheels falling off' recall hadn't occurred, I wouldn't have found the SE. Given my age (old geezer), the SE is potentially my last car.
