Innovation is Not Just Putting Things Wherever
The Mini Cooper is a fun car to drive: it has a tight turning radius, decent acceleration, and responsive handling.
It is not, however, a fun car to operate.
Take the turn signals. If you were the driver behind me on the freeway, you might be forgiven for thinking that the primary function of these blinking lights was to alternate incessantly between left and right, indicating nothing so much as the reduced mental capacity of the driver.
Unlike most vehicles in its class, the turn signals on the Mini Cooper do not remain depressed after signaling a turn. Instead, the stem returns to the ready position, leaving the vehicle operator with an interesting conundrum: how the fuck does one turn off the signal? If you guessed a 50% depression of the stem in the original direction of signaling, you did better than I.
This careful attention to the flouting of automotive interface conventions continues in nearly every aspect of the instrument cluster, from the iconic, oversized speedometer mounted in the center of the console to the volume knob conveniently isolated from every other stereo control, to the center mounted window controls (admittedly I’ve encountered this poor decision before).
