2007 Mini Cooper S: Grandmother, What a Big Speedometer You Have

November 01, 2007

Last night a friend and I were heading over to a Halloween party clear across town in Downtown L.A. While we were sitting in the 2007 Mini Cooper S during post rush-hour traffic, out of the blue she blurts out, "Why is the speedometer so huge?" What's funny is that I never really considered that before as I just shrugged it off as a Mini quirk.

But why is it so huge? It's not like it contains a lot of additional gauges. "It's almost pie-size," she continued. "It's just weird for a small car like the Mini to have this one big pie-plate thing in it." "Yeah, I dunno," was all I could think to say.

Later I asked one of the editors, John DiPietro, if he knew the answer.

He said that it was just another retro feature but then ran to his computer to see if he could find any information about it online. Here's what he came up with: "It seems that the modern Mini (greatly) exaggerates a styling cue of the original -- the central-mounted speedo."

Oh.

Caroline Pardilla, Deputy Managing Editor @ 6,296 miles