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Drive On The Left | The List #0033

When you've been driving on the right side of the road your whole life, driving on the left can be incredibly disorienting. In this episode of The List, hosts Jessi Combs and Patrick McIntyre brave the traffic-filled streets of London as they take in the sights in a Mini Cooper. "London is not a driving city. There are millions of people and millions of cars," said Patrick. "And the streets seem to have been laid out at random over the centuries." Even Jessi found herself battling old habits in the right-hand drive Mini. "I've already gone over to reach for the door twice to shift it," she said. Our hosts dig into the history behind the traffic swap on the other side of the pond as they attempt to check "Drive On The Left" off their List. Click here to find more episodes of The List Click here to learn more about our hosts, Jessi and Patrick MINI Coupe The List Videos Original Video right hand drive

This classic electric Mini costs $100,000, but just look at it

We all love the original Mini, so when a British company decided to develop an electric version of it using a restored original body, we took notice. Enter the Swind E Classic Mini. Electric cars are allowed to have a soul, and this one is just as cute as a Mini with a little gas motor. Swind, a UK-based tech and engineering company, didn't just produce a half-baked version of an electric Mini. The powertrain is a bespoke, in-house design developed by the company's own engineers. The body has contemporary corrosion protection to make sure it doesn't rot like an original from the 1960s. Also, new brake and suspension parts ensure it'll feel relatively modern to drive. Don't expect any mind-blowing specs and numbers from the little EV, though. It uses a 24 kWh lithium ion battery pack and the electric motor produces 110 horsepower. Zero to 60 mph is achieved in 9.2 seconds. That's not impressive on today's world, bu is still quicker than this Mini would have been with its original gas engine. Top speed is 80 mph, and range is rated at an impressive 125 miles. That's plenty for this little city runabout — road trips won't be this Mini's job anyway, especially if you have to run it near top speed just to keep up with traffic. Swind says it'll get to a full charge in four hours via its fast charging capability. Weight is kept to only 1,587 pounds, so this will be one of the lightest electric cars on the road. The benefits of modernizing and electrifying the Mini help out in other areas, too. You can check option boxes for an infotainment system with navigation. USB ports come standard, as do heated leather seats. Curiously, air conditioning is an option. If you prefer no power steering, that's possible; performance tuning packs are available, but there's no explanation for what that entails. There's more space in the boot for stuff with the gas tank removed, and weight distribution is improved at a 57/43 split (it was 68/32 originally). Now we move onto the less desirable portion of this Mini: The price. Converted from pounds sterling, this Mini goes for $100,970. You can buy a whole lot of car for that money, or you can have an electric Mini. At least Swind is really building it, unlike the one-off shown by Mini at the NY Auto Show last year. Production is limited to only 100 cars that all come with a one-year unlimited-mile warranty.

Mini goes zany with latest accessories catalog

Driving a Mini is most definitely an individualistic choice - one that not everyone would get on board with. So if you're going to go with such a fashion statement, you might as well give it your own sense of style. That's where Mini's new line of accessories come in.
Available for the new third-gen Mini hardtop, the accessories offer buyers the opportunity to customize their retro hatchback as best they see fit. There are roof graphics, accessory lighting, wheel upgrades and mirror caps (like the cartoonish ones pictured at right) just like you would have found in the parts catalog for previous iterations of the Mini, but now the brand is offering four appearance kits it's calling Mini Design Lines.
The kits are color coordinated in either Vivid Green, Speedwell Blue, John Cooper Works Pro (in black, red and grey) and Essential Black and include everything from the interior trim to exterior graphics. They might not be to everyone's taste, but that kinda strikes us as the point. Scope 'em out in the extensive high-res image gallery above and the details in the press release below.