Refreshed Mini Cooper Hardtop 2-Door earns second-ever IIHS Top Safety Pick designation

In its 17-year history in the U.S., the Mini Cooper Hardtop has been the go-to choice for those seeking a hatchback with some quirky German flair.

While the Mini Hardtop was hard to miss and easy to love, it never possessed a penchant for safety. Until now, that is.

For the 2019 model year, the refreshedMini Cooper Hardtop 2-Door earned its second-ever Top Safety Pick designation from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Armed with acceptable headlights ratings and advanced front crash prevention offerings, the Mini Cooper improved significantly from 2018, when it garnered radio silence from the IIHS.

In five of the IIHS's six rigorous crashworthiness tests – driver-side small overlap front, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength, and head restraints and seats – the Cooper earned top good ratings. Because the Mini Hardtop wasn't evaluated in the passenger-side small overlap front test, it didn't qualify for the Top Safety Pick+ award, a newly minted requirement by the independent safety watchdog as of 2018.

As for crash avoidance and mitigation, the 2019 Hardtop – when equipped with the optional frontal collision warning with city collision mitigation system as part of the Active Driving Assistant package – scored an advanced rating, as it nearly avoided a collision in the low-speed 12 mph test and reduced its impact speed by 7 mph in the high-speed 25 mph test. Had the Hardtop halted ahead of a collision in both scenarios, it would have earned the top superior rating.

Recently, the institute has doubled down on its stringent standards for headlights, citing the increase in hit-and-run deaths of pedestrians as well as half of all fatal crashes in the U.S. occurring in the dark, with more than a quarter occurring on unlit roads.