Jason Torchinsky, the Senior Editor of popular automotive publication Jalopnik, has criticized the U.S. variant of the MINI for its controversial taillight design, The flashy LED lights resemble the British flag, but who thought that putting arrow-like turn indicators in their middle was a good idea?
When a turn light goes up, multiple glowing sections of the brake light form an arrow shaped from a half of the British flag. The main issue is that this improvised arrow is always pointing in the wrong direction: left when the driver actually turns right, and vice versa.
Torchinsky spared no words voicing his frustration at this design decision, calling it “a cruel slap in the face of logic and reason,” “a deliberate troll,” and “chaos”. Interestingly, the local Mini office responded to the critique claiming that the LEDs highlight the national attribute of the marque, and that the customers had nothing critical to say about them – on the contrary, they had plenty of praise for them.
Things are different in Europe, where a single horizontal turn blinker lights up instead of an arrow (watch the video for a demonstration). The U.S. taillights do not use orange, though, which creates another problem: the turn lamps could be misinterpreted as brake signals because of their reddish tint.