The MINI Concept Aceman interior is also dominated by a reduced design with clear contours and carefully executed details. It combines innovative technology with newly interpreted, yet typical MINI design features.
The concept car’s cockpit is consistently reduced to the bare essentials, just as the designer of the classic MINI had in mind in 1959. Alec Issigonis designed an interior which, in addition to the seats, steering wheel and gear lever, needed nothing more than a central round instrument and toggle switch bar to experience unrivalled driving pleasure.
“In the interior of the MINI Concept Aceman, we have concentrated on a simplistic appearance in combination with premium materials and welcoming colours. Digitisation enables us to make do with few operating elements and at the same time to maximise the experience in a way that is characteristic of MINI,” explains Oliver Heilmer. “The entire design is all about offering occupants a holistic experience in the interior space.”
Wide-open and gently curved surfaces in the area of the door panels and the dashboard give a generous feeling of space. The large panoramic glass roof of the MINI Concept Aceman provides an ambience flooded in light. Its glass surface is patterned by the transverse and diagonal struts of the roof rack, whose structure picks up on the Union Jack flag motif, reminding us of the brand’s origins when gazing up at the sky from the interior.
The dashboard is a flat design element styled like a sound bar that extends across the entire width of the interior in front of the driver’s and front passenger’s seats. Its soft knitted textile surfaces create a modern and homey atmosphere in the MINI Concept Aceman interior. The dashboard is connected via a support structure which, like the roof rack, displays the Union Jack pattern, re-emphasising the harmony between exterior and interior design.
The dashboard, extending particularly far into the interior in the central area, forms the perfect setting for the central interface, which combines all the functions of the instrument cluster and the on-board monitor as a round OLED display. True to its traditions, a toggle switch bar is set below the large screen. Touch control using state-of-the-art digitalisation and analogue functionality with physical switches are uniquely and typically combined in a way that is unmistakably MINI.
The redesigned toggle switches operate the parking brake, select gears, activate and deactivate the drive, select Experience Modes and adjust the audio system volume. Each toggle is individually designed as a rotary knob or toggle switch for the most intuitive operation.