Not that you'd know it from looking at the new 2024 Cooper S. I have to admit, when I first saw the press release for the new MINI Cooper S, I thought I was looking at the cooking Cooper. I had to double-take, then check again that it wasn’t a typo. A slip of the finger. But zoom in, squint and you’ll see it on the grill, that little squiggle of an ‘S’ in red which confirms the pictures attached were indeed the genuine article.

Gone are all the hallmarks of the S that established an instantly recognisable hierarchy. Yes, the bonnet scoop has been redundant since the top mount intercooler of the supercharged R53 made it a necessity, but it still captured the imagination and attention of buyers. Also gone is the fuel filler cap, and moving to the rear, they’ve even binned off the signature central twin exit exhaust! At least the black stripes around the wheel arches have been retained, unlike on the EV.

So why has MINI tried so hard to disguise the Cooper S as a base model? Why is the firm not shouting about this being the end of an era? Alignment is the answer, and not of the tracking variety. MINI’s bigwigs have a split strategy for the new generation car as we first reported last year. On one side, you have the EV platform, which shares its underpinnings with the Ora Funky Cat. On the petrol-powered side of the fence, the older F56 generation lives on, only reskinned to look as close as possible to the EV. When you understand the design language for the EV is “charismatic simplicity”, you can appreciate how the new Cooper S looks so meek.

It’s all been done to make it look like the EV in showrooms and pull the wool over the eyes that this petrol version is still the same car, not a new model. It's like James Bond in You Only Live Twice having suspect surgery to look Japanese so he can go undercover.

The launch colour hasn’t helped, being the same hue as a bar of flowery soap just underlines the new car’s lack of aggression. A visit to the configurator restores a little faith, whereupon you realise you can specify a MINI Cooper S Sport (a Sport-Sport?) for an extra £2,500 which returns some of the err, sportiness to the design with an extra pair of intakes in the lower front bumper, and a different five-spoke alloy wheel design. This must-have hikes the price of the S to a not inconsiderable £31,035 before options - GR Yaris territory.

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