Utility vehicles with seating for four don’t do much to endear themselves with buyers who may actually carry people as well as cargo.
As useful as the Honda Element was, anecdotal evidence suggests that families were put off by the lack of a middle seat. MINI was smart enough to offer the option of either a bench seat or two individual bucket seats for the Countryman, with the 2+2 configuration offered as standard.
For 2013, the bench will now be the default configuration, with the buckets offered as an option. Apparently, NHTSA mandated a minimum width for vehicles to offer three-across seating in the rear, and until the requirements were altered, MINI was forced to offer the car as a 2+2 only. Once the bench seat became available, hardly anyone opted for the buckets.
Damn, that sure is fugly!
I usually like white cars (I own one), but white looks very unflattering on the Countryman.
It looks good in brown!
The width is listed as 70.4″. My Mazda 2 is 65.7″ wide and has seating for three in the rear. Seems odd the 2 was ok but not the so-called MINI.
That’s right. Subcompacts smaller than the Countryman have been offering bench seats for years. Is this perhaps just a smokescreen from Mini to divert attention away from their decision to stick buyers with buckets to begin with?
There may be a trio of seat belts back there, but my three kids refuse to cram into the back of the 2. Also, no center headrest is kind of a bummer :
And if I’m reading this and other articles correctly, it’s not the width of the car but the width of the rear seat itself that is in question. The Mazda has very thin doors and door panels; the Mini’s panels likely resulted in a narrower rear seat.
It bothers me somehow that such a (comparatively) large vehicle can, in any dimension, be smaller inside than a subcompact…
Probably a lot to do with the fancy rear suspension and wheel-wells sized to eat fatter meats than a Fiesta or Mazda2 will handle.
Modern MINIs have always been smaller inside than they should be.
70.4″ is quite wide not to be able to fit 3-across in the back. A very large number of mid-sized cars used to be at 70″ and less wide back in the day, so for a “mini”car of this size not to be able to seat 5 is silly. Poor design. For comparison, a Corolla is less wide and could still seat 5.
Much as like my E, there are times when I wish Honda had figured how fit seating for 3 in the back. Definitely a deal-breaker for growing families.
On the E, I just wish they had figured out how to make the pillars smaller.
Does the change in minimum width make a 5-seat converible (anything that is not a jeep) possible?
Minis are no longer mini. They are big now, maybe these should be calles Maxi instead of Mini.
The buckets are the only reason my wife didn’t buy this car. I actually didn’t know about the availability of a bench.
What’s wrong with rear buckets?
3 children