The MINI Aero Kit: First Official Photos
After months of waiting we have the first full-size images of the new MINI factory installed aero kit.
With the R56 MINI will be releasing not one but two different aero kits. The kit seen above (and for the first time) is simply branded the “MINI aero kit” and had not been publicly seen outside of a small black and white thumbnail on MINIUSA.com. It will be available as a factory option and as part of the “Hyper Sport Package” and a stand-alone factory accessory.
The first aero released for the R56 (seen directly above) debuted last fall and is being branded a JCW accessory. For the time being it will be available only as a dealer installed item. It’s a fairly aggressive design with a love it or hate it look that has garnered plenty of opinions.
MF Analysis: For anyone who is ordering the R56 in the US and considering the Hyper Sport package – do yourself a favor and don’t even think about checking that box. We’re officially going on record here at MotoringFile and saying the “MINI” Aero kit pictured above is quite possibly the worst OEM accessory ever released. I am actually in awe of it’s awkwardness.
It may be worth noting that MINI’s aero-kit product planning actually precisely follows what BMW does for its 3 Series: One typically gaudy “BMW” aero-kit, a one very nice “M” branded kit.
It looks hideous!
Looks to be nothing more than new bumpers only. Side skirts look pretty much the same as the non-aero ones on my MINI. Lame.
“We’re officially going on record here at MotoringFile and saying “MINI†Aero kit pictured above is quite possible the worst OEM accessory ever released. I am actually in awe of it’s awkwardness.”
… but re-painting the black wheel arch trims to match the body colo(u)r might be very effective for this ugly duckling, eh?
>… but re-painting the black wheel arch trims to match the body colo(u)r might be very effective for this ugly duckling, eh?
I’m personally very against painting the wheel arches on the MINI. There are few things that rob the design of it’s drama and character more then doing so.
If the MINI in question had 18″ wheels the look might be salvaged.
But that’s just me 🙂
the aero kit needs to be what’s on at the JCW pages. that offical aero kit was FUGLY! 🙂
Good grief. It’s like the MINI design team had a competition trying to one-up each other to make the worst possible aero kit design they could convince at least one poor soul into actually buying.
JCW Aero Kit FTW!
At least the chrome side “vents” are nice.
This is horrible! Are you sure this is not some sort of bad joke?
Kudos to Gabe for standing up against BMW messing up the aero kit. That’s simply a terrible looking wad of plastic.
Is it April 1st already?
Gabe —
Any indication whether MINI will offer a separate JCW engine kit for the plain ol’ Cooper, like it did for the 2002-2004 models? Not the Sound Kit, which I purchased for my ’04 CVT, but a “real deal” for the manual.
Gabe,
Have you heard if the JCW kit will be available through the parts department as the R53 kit was? It was unavailable for order when we got our R56, and I am disappointed to see this horrible excuse of a kit.
PS – I like the painted arches and plan to do it on the R56 too 😛
Randy
Yea, the way those fender skirts just end at the aero kit doesn’t look awkward. Nope, not at all. 😉
It’s quite amazing to what lenghts BMW has gone to in order to have us step up to a higher priced purchase.
I can’t believe those photos came from BMW.
And the twin rear fogs are officialy an eyesore as well … aero kit or not.
on the other hand, doesn’t the GP have similar unpainted wheel arches that break up the visual flow of the kit?
or does it just look a bit better on it because the body color is darker?
Guess they should issue it with some masking tape and a can of black Krylon. I honestly cannot see any evidence of aesthetic thought regarding integration of design elements, something the MINI had in abundance in previous iterations. Bloody awful.
BCNU,
Rob in Dago
Wow, saw this on NAM earlier today and could have sworn it was photoshopped it was so ugly. This is hideous and embarrassing, frankly. MINI has always been pretty good with their accessories, what happened here???
Thank goodness for their a la carte ordering!
Stunning and not in a good way.
Definitely not gonna’ be a big seller…hasn’t Bangle got other things to attend to?
It looks unfinished.
Excuse my French but this factory “Aero Kit” is a major clusterF***K. It is clear that the R56 has no design direction whatsoever. How did this piece of shit ever got past Mr. Hildelbrand’s approval??
Absolutely DISGUSTING! As much as I want a R55 Clubman, I have to say that I am not impressed with a lot of the design details of this new generation.
Frank Stephenson must be reaching for the Pepto Bismol as we speak….
Can’t disagree with the consensus of opinion regarding the first option. The JCW is more acceptable but stil doesn’t possess much aesthetic magic.
The European after-market tuners (Hartge, Hamann, Schnitzer and Alpina among others) will no doubt do a better job and offer much more compelling alternatives if the “M3 corollary” also misses the mark.
As for painting the wheel arches — I’m all for it since it succeeds to integrate the design and give it the cohesion that the obtrusive black lips significantly diminish.
MINI should consider offering buyers two exterior options: matching body color wheel arches; and more roof color choices.
Pepto didn’t work for me-I think I’m going to barf….I hope this is an anomaly. If future designs follow this horrendous example, count me out.
First global warming, now this! Lets change Motoringfile to a Pontiac Aztec site. Is suicide legal?
While on the subject of exterior design “upgrades”, here’s another that MINI may wish to consider bringing to market — an LED tail light package. This would not only improve visibility/safety but enhance appearance as well.
And unlike the plethora of garish after-market silvered “pimp mobile specials” the MINI option should take their design cues from manufacturers such as R-R. Next time you find yourself in traffic behind a braking behemoth Phantom “Roller” check-out the brilliant LEDs illuminating your bonnet.
I agree I don’t like it at all.
Criticism serves no purpose without offering an alternative no matter how impassioned.
Wow. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have wasted the lightbox bandwidth on those shots. Ick.
It sucks, therefore I critique. I’m afraid I’ve never offered an alternative to a poorly prepared dinner, altho I’ve left my impassioned criticism a couple times for the help to wipe up off the floor. Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder, tho offering an alternative can be a bit painful if beauty has a fast turn with a heavy handbag – it’s dicey enough when offering an honest assessment of someone’s…ah…standout features, so it’s best to tread carefully when defining a drastic replacement. A simple yea or nay is good enough for me.
BCNU,
Rob in Dago
oh my
Gabe’s right on – it doesn’t work. They are ingoring some of the strongest design cues on the car – stepping on their own toes. The standard MC and MCS work is so much better than this, why would anybody choose this.
Back to the drawing board – try again.
I REALLY like the body colored grill slats. Everything else …
Jesus H. Mahogany Christ on a pogo stick! WFT?!
?????????????….oh,…I get it NOW. It’s ugly as hell;however,since it’s an,”aero kit”,it will make said cooper,faster in regards to passing through the air…
…maybe?
LOL, they did exactly what they did with the GP and the reactions are the same. Unfortunately, with the thicker arches the effect is much worse. If they just completed the arches it would have a really clean look.
The JCW one is pretty decent..
but the NINI aero kit.. I hope Motoring file fell for some sicko joke.
Integrate the black arches fully into the kit and it becomes much more bearable. As it is, I agree that painting the arches is the only viable solution.
Shamus: I agree. The black arches not continuing in the kit (just look at the old aerokit to see how it must be done) is the biggest fuck-up with this one, followed at some distance by the huge body-colored panel in the rear bumper.
It’s such a shame Mini continues to disappoint in the design area. I was never hot on the R56 design, basically excepting that most “problems” were dictated by regulations (but there’s no excuse for stuff like the huge side “vents” and the ridiculously huge center speedo). Then, the JCW aero kit came, which gave me very painful associations with those horrible pimped rice cars. Then, the news came that there would be yet another aero kit, could this help in giving the R56 a more agressive look? Turns out not, yet another disappointment. The last good design move Hildebrand made was the 2005 facelift (I actually prefer the facelift to the pre-facelift R50/R53), it was downhill from there.
I’ll try not to get my hopes up for the factory-JCW-kit that Gabe mentions and try to get to grips with the realisation things may not brighten up and my next car will just have to be an Alfa Junior or an Audi A2 (not such a punishment if you think about it).
man… that is the worst mini accessory i’ve ever seen…!!! i can’t believe it’s ‘oem’…?!!! wtf?!
Are we sure the image isn’t a mistake? The lack of continuance of the wheel arches is what is really disrupting opinions of the kit. Even so… the factory S kit looks very nice compared to this. I could not imagine replacing it with this option.
It also looks like the kit is designed for the Cooper.
The MINI kit is the pits. The JCW kit is acceptable.
I’ve never been too happy with the wider/thicker arches. This sero kit just makes it worse. I say give MINI/BMW a “re-do” and hope they get it right the next time.
What the heck was MINI thinking here??? That is the funkiest looking aero kit I have ever seen! YUCK! The painted arches might salvage it somewhat, but man, I can’t believe this crap made it to production. GROSS! Glad I have my R53 aero kit!!!
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.
The JCW one looks a little better, but not too much (espcecially the rear).
Some are saying that the GP is the same, but its not – both have body colored side rails, and the front air-dam stops the wheel arch the same way, but the rear of the GP continues the black arches down to below the bumper.
Hopefully BMW will realize their error and correct this before its available. I really am stunned at how bad this is, and the comments on here bear this out–not a single positive one. I don’t like either aerokit (The JCW looks like a toned down Ocari, which was never my cup of tea, although I’ll admit I saw it on a PW/B and it looked nice, and it’s passable on CR/B–but don’t like it on any other color), but the one above is absolutely hideous with regard to its implementation. It certainly doesn’t flow–it looks like its parts were randomly chosen and thrown together.
You’d think that the designers would beta test the thing–get some opinions on it from people interested in the MINI, in the owners lounge or elsewhere, but apparently they don’t. This thing is going to be one huge flop.
I saw this moping around the factory wondering what it was – must admit it works even less in the flesh! The best thing anyone buying the aero kit could do is colour code the plastic spats (arches) – wont look quite so awkward then.
Good grief – that’s hideous!
Think Mini really needs to revist their kit, the JCW is acceptable all in all. The way the wheel arch trim stops it draws my eye to one of more questionable design features of the new Mini the width of the arches themselves.
What Billy said about seeing it in the flesh leaves me with even less anticipation of ever seeing this kit in its current form.
Billy, didn’t they ask anyone at the factory what they thought of the thing, or was it just rolled out?
Its just that its so bad, I can’t believe they didn’t catch this sooner.
i cant believe they would try to sell the factory kit, it must be the uglist thing i have ever seen, it looks like someone made it in their garage with bits of plastic, i do quite like the JCW one though and plan on getting 🙂
A comprehensive redesign is the best alternative. And I don’t simply mean the body kit, I mean the entire vehicle … OR simply bring back the old design with its superlative hood/fender contours and deploy a frekkin’ airbag from under the bumper to “safeguard ped safety.” Similarly, bring back the beautiful curved glass C-pillars and much better scaled and more attractive tail lights that appeared to be molded into the body. Of course this may not be viable but at least it underscores some of the best features that have been allegedly foresaken for “safety sake.”
The fat fender lips will likely be reduced by an enterprising after-marketer handy with a lipo syringe although pouty Angelina lips are hot right now! How ’bout offering an inflatible options package that would enable remote inflation of not only the lips but also the grill frame. This would differentiate the expressions of aroused female MINIs from the now wanna-be “agressive” looking masculine bulldog MINIs. (:
If this is part of the “hyper sport” package, what else come with it. Any desirable performance features that will acually make people buy it?
Stop this please! It is a joke, no? MINI design team cannot have done this…it is too amateur! No, even much more worse! Please MINI/BMW, bring back Frank Stephenson and pay him whatever he asks, your future is on the edge like in The Italian Job, first edition…
I have it from a MINI USA insider that the design team responsible for creating the new aero kit was unable to make the final adjustments and design modifications as they wanted. Seems the eight-person team has mysteriously vanished under very suspicious circumstances … since they completed their first project … the center stack. The FBI is investigating.
In my opinion, all it shows is how lost Frank Stephenson’s design language is on whoever is weilding the pen at MINI lately. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the majority of the design elements on the R56 are not in my view evolutions of what Frank did with the R50/53, but rather a derivative set of changes for change’s sake. “It was an oval here before, let’s keep it an oval and just extend it back. We had a big speedo before, let’s make it bigger…” and so forth.
Gabe, I couldn’t agree more with you about the necessity of the wheel arches and the way the trim wraps around the bottom perimeter of the car – such a key to the look of the MINI. Here they’re set off so much, they become the instant focus of the whole look of the car – which is simply horrid. It redirects the visual focus away from any sort of unified aggressive look to “hey look at these black wheel arches!”
Awful. Awful. Awful. It seriously looks like it ought to be offered on an eBay auction in Asia for $39.95 USD! The JCW looks fantastic. How did they screw this up?
The residual value of my first gen MCS with aero kit just went up!
MAN! That’s screwed up body kit!!! General R56 design critiques aside… as a “finished” aero product goes… someone should be embarrased (and fired) over this one.
If you’re going to go with painted bumper covers and side sills (and color matched fenders are out), for god sakes… DON’T have them interrupt/abreviate the fenders arches. If the fake brake ducts have to intesect, do something to tie them in like drillsliger showed… or set them apart like this:
<a href="http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b330/msh441/MINI2.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc">http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b330/msh441/MINI2.jpg</a>
Thanks for the Photoshop, msh441. It illustrates the point brilliantly, the single biggest fuck-up is the interruption of the arches. Otherwise, it’s not that bad. Now Mini should replace the “closed-up” opening on the rear bumper with some kind of black mesh, and a disaster may have been diverted.
The photoshop is fantastic – might have to forward it to my boss Lol
Wowsers! How can an OEM kit as ugly as this be taken seriously? They can do better than that at Mini! It looks like a cheap add-on that you might find on a cheap japanese car or something… BUT, although it does nothing to reshape the front or rear bumpers, that Photoshop clearly shows the kits’ main weakness… So any of you ‘lucky’ enough to own one of these aero kits might just have to get down and dirty with the matte black paint…
I got a call last week that my order was going in at April Production with the hyper sport package. I spent this morning calling the dealer trying to remove this package. Hopefully they can still do it. Arg…..
That’s awesome. Thank you for reporting that the Works Mini will have its own kit as I’m not fond of the current JCW aero rear bumper or this beautifully crafted oem eyesore.
Unsuccessful solution. I agree with several posts above, that painting black arches in body color will defiantly help.
BMW knock – knock – knock ” Deadline is up ”
MINI Desingners etc (door…squeaking…opens very slowly) ” this is what you get ”
BMW ” OK, we’ll take it ”
Buyers – uhh – NO, double NO NO
months pass, launch over, sales booming! R56 is a hit – Sales in the US out pace the UK.
BMW / MINI – ” So how come we have yet to sell at least one buyer optioned hyper package? “
In all the years of religiously reading Motoringfile, I have never seen this much hate for something coming out of Oxford. This is unprecidented.
I hope you’re listening, MINI!