By Kelly Foss, MyCarData.com

MINI COUNTRYMAN JOHN COOPER WORKS

Starting Price: $34,800

Minis have gone through a wrenching transformation ever since BMW bought them nearly 20 years ago. They’ve become bigger and better; more complex and more expensive. Still, current Mini lovers are some of the most loyal owners in the industry.

Compared with the origin ultra-simple, small, light runabout of yesteryear, the new Mini Cooper is about a foot and a half longer and about 1,000 pounds heavier. The new Countryman crossover compared with the new Mini Cooper is about a foot and a half longer and about 1,000 pounds heavier again.

In fairness, the new models have to meet safety standards that the originals couldn’t even come close to. Additionally, the new Germanic owners simply demand a more substantial vehicle than the original Minis were. While the Countryman is a large Mini, it still has one of the smallest footprints of any car on the road.

The Countryman can be described as the maxi Mini. By Mini standards it’s huge, yet kept in perspective, even the Countryman is not a large vehicle comparatively speaking. The Countryman is categorized as the crossover of the Mini world. It has four doors, a rear hatch, the All4 all-wheel drive system and the John Cooper Works high output engine.

The 4-door body actually accommodates four adults in pretty decent comfort. The seats feel good, the cabin is nicely appointed and there is pretty generous head room. Because of its size, however, it just doesn’t have much extra space inside once four humans get in.

My test car was powered by a 1.6 liter turbocharged 4 cylinder engine that pumped out 208 horsepower. That combined with a smooth 6 speed automatic transition allowed the Countrymen to effortlessly glide down the road at any posted speed and above. It accelerated to 60 miles an hour in about seven seconds which is also very good. The Countryman loves to be flung around a corner to demonstrate just how good the car is in the ride and handling department.

As with all Minis, the Countryman probably has the largest number of interesting design elements per square foot of any brand. It’s almost as though they took all the bling of a large upscale sedan and squeezed it into this small one. In the end you’ve got a 3,500-pound mini crossover car that is about three-quarters the size of its competition. It’s an exercise in upscale minimalism.

Personally I enjoyed driving the car; I found it to be a fun vehicle to spend time in. For the Mini faithful, the Countryman makes perfect sense. For non-mini people, many will wince at the near $40,000 price tag for the car, especially considering the large array of vehicles you could buy for that amount of money.

CHEVROLET IMPALA

Starting Price: $26,800

Chevrolet has gone full circle with the Impala. When it debuted in 1958 it introduced upscale features to the Chevrolet brand. In recent years, it received virtually no attention from Chevy designers and was a less than stellar vehicle found mostly in law enforcement and rental car duty. For 2014 all that has changed. The Impala once again takes its rightful place as a upscale large sedan that the Chevy faithful can be proud of.

In current automotive design, manufacturers develop a platform and then repurpose it in as many different forms as possible. The Impala is the beneficiary of that approach as it shares the same platform with the new Buick LaCrosse and the Cadillac XTS. However, the Impala is positioned to compete with the Ford Taurus and the rear-wheel drive Chrysler 300.

The new Impala is very stylish, again affirming the fact that it doesn’t cost any more to form metal body parts into pleasing shapes as opposed to homely ones. It is sleek and carries an attractive presence. The swooping roofline does impinge on head room but the 10-way power seats offer many adjustments. Both the cabin and trunk spaces are very generous but there is a high driveshaft hump in the floor, something very unusual for a front-wheel drive vehicle, unless it’s there to allow for a future all-wheel drive system. The interior makes a statement. Though there are numerous types, colors and textures of materials on the instrument panel and gauge clusters, the busyness and visual drama of this moving collage doesn’t get in the way of the efficient working of the car.

Our test Impala, the top of the line 2LZ with the LTZ package, had some high- end features and a price tag just under $40,000, a princely sum for a Chevrolet sedan. It included features like a lane departure warning that you can completely turn off if you like, thankfully, and radar cruise control which maintains a selected distance between you and the vehicle in front of you. GM’s new MyLink infotainment system was present, but the upscale Bose 11 speaker audio system needed some better speakers to fully deliver the full range of sound that this system capable of. Chevrolet displayed its comprehension of customer preferences very well by offering both a heated steering wheel and ventilated/cooled seats. I noted that the spacious interior in the big Chevy was tomb quiet. The car does an excellent job of filtering out the exterior sounds of life and delivering a composed and comfortable driving experience.

All Impalas are equipped with GM’s 305 horsepower 3.6 liter V6 engine mated to a modern 6 speed automatic transmission. This combination pulls the big Chevy down the road at an enthusiastic gallop, yet delivers an above-average 27.3 mpg overall fuel economy experience in my week of driving.

I didn’t experience any glaring deficiencies in this new model. It did everything really quite well. It offers a great combination of styling, comfort, efficiency, performance and premium features.

Visit MyCarData.com for more information on these models.