BMW Has Made An All-Electric Classic Mini, And We're In Love

Remember Honda’s Urban EV concept? It blended ultra-cool retro styling with a city-friendly all-electric powertrain to make the kind of EV that even petrolheads can get on board with.

Now, BMW has cooked up something similar via its Mini brand. Well, sort of. The car you see here may look like one of the late, Rover-built Minis, but it’s had the dinky stock petrol engine whipped out and replaced with a bunch of batteries and a single electric motor.

There isn’t a whole lot of technical detail in the press release, but Topgear.com reports that it’s packing 30 lithium-ion batteries, weighs about 770kg, and has a range of 65 miles. Top speed is a modest 75mph.

The point of all this? With this cute little EV, Mini apparently “sends out a clear signal demonstrating its commitment to retaining the brand’s unmistakable character whilst embracing innovative zero local emission technology.” That’s lovely and all, but can’t help but be distracted wondering how awesome it’d be if Mini put this New York Auto Show one-off into a limited production. After all, if Land Rover can restore, upgrade and sell a bunch of Defenders with V8s, perhaps Mini can breathe new life into a few crusty old Minis…