MINI Countryman Earns Top Safety Pick From IIHS

Sections: R60 (Countryman) | Safety | Video Mar 3rd, 2011 3 Comments

The MINI Countryman just knocked it out of the park with a Top Safety Pick from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. This is the highest score a car can get. Here’s a direct quote from the IIHS’ site:

The Mini Cooper Countryman, a 4-door small car, earns the Institute’s top safety accolade after achieving good ratings for front, side, rollover, and rear impact protection. It is the first Mini to win, and the second model from BMW to achieve top results since the Institute tightened the criteria to include good performance for roof strength in rollover crashes [the other is the 2011 BMW 5 series]. The roof of the Countryman withstood a force equal to nearly 5 times the car’s weight. By comparison, the current federal standard is 1.5 times weight.

In addition to good crash test ratings, winners must have electronic stability control (ESC), an important crash-avoidance feature, which is standard on the Countryman.

You can see the scores here.

Written By: Gabe

alpinamike

Great news for MINI, now if someone can glue that silver Mirror Cap , it took the brunt of the impact and almost survived. ;)

I notice MINI gave them a solid steal roof. You can see the wave of force bounce on the steal roof.

Next stop for this MINI, first a letter like BMW received(from IIHS) for the X5 when first launched, Front and center at MINI HQ in New Jersey where it will be on display.

Good job MINI Engineers.
dr

WOW….The rear window did not even shatter. Am I seeing that correctly or is it an illusion?
JonPD

Best video of a R60 so far ;)

BMW/MINI does have a lot of very talented engineers working for them and they should be proud of these test results. Only thing I saw that looked weak was the rear seat knee and hip protection. Much less of a worry though than the head for sure.

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