Audi A6 vs MINI Cooper

The redesigned 2026 Audi A6 marks the ninth generation of midsize luxury sedans from Ingolstadt, Germany. While it shares a name and some tech features with the Audi A6 e-tron introduced for the 2025 model year, the gasoline A6 is an otherwise different vehicle based on the same Premium Platform Combustion (PPC) as the A5 sedan and Q5 crossover. A redesign was certainly needed as most other midsize luxury sedans—specifically the BMW 5 Series and the Mercedes-Benz E-Class—were renewed more recently, and we haven’t had a genuinely new A6 since the 2020 model year.

Verdict: On paper, the A6 looks like more of a premium product than before, but it doesn’t feel that way from behind the wheel, and the tech is a work in progress.

The Mini Cooper is redesigned for 2025 with a host of alterations throughout. It’s a little bigger inside and out, while sporting all-new infotainment tech and quirky interior design to help maintain the badge’s fun personality. It still weighs less than 1,400 kilograms (3,000 pounds), too, and when combined with a potent turbocharged four-cylinder in the Cooper S, that makes for some truly hilarious fun-to-drive attitude.

Verdict: Although substantially larger than the original BMW Mini that reached North American shores in 2002, and no longer offering a manual transmission as standard, the new Mini Cooper continues to be a stylish and fun-to-drive way of getting around. And it will even return solid overall fuel economy in the process.