How Big Is The 'Little' MINI Cooper Countryman? It's THAT Big

Size is relative, and what counts as a small car today would have been viewed as much larger 50 years ago.

Nowhere is that more obvious than in the case of perhaps the definitive front-wheel-drive economy car, the British Mini.

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But today's 2015 MINI Cooper is considerably more maxi than it used to be; each of the little hatchback's three modern incarnations has gotten larger.

And even the first generation unveiled in 2002 was much, much bigger than the original 1959 Morris Mini-Minor created by famed auto designer Alec Issigonis.

Now a photo perfectly encapsulates just how big today's MINI Cooper is--or, perhaps, how astoundingly tiny the 10-foot-long original Mini was.

An Instagram post by TheShadowCollections shows an original Mini sitting on the roof of a MINI Cooper Countryman.

The Countryman may be the largest of several so-called MINI models, but the original perched on its roof--apparently on a tray or rack custom-made for the purpose--points out just how big the subcompact utility actually is.