By Jason Torchinsky

Let’s face it: you never know when you might find a magic tangelo under some litter on the street, bite heartily into it, and find yourself transported to behind the wheel of a car hurtling down the Pan-American Highway. I’d like to help you prepare for such a situation, so it’s quite fortunate that I’m just recently back from a trip driving a new Mini Countryman Hybrid on the Pan-American Highway, from Santiago, Chile to South America’s coccyx in Tierra del Fuego.

(Full Disclosure: Mini flew me down to South America for this road trip, and paid for my food, lodging—which sometimes included a bidet—and booze. More dispatches coming.)

Mini has been driving a trio of Hybrid Mini Countrymans (Countryfolk?) all the way from Texas, and jamming various journalists in the car along the route so that we can let you, our dewy, languid readers, get some idea of what this trip is like.

I actually like the Mini Countryman, and it did a very credible job here on a very long and grueling journey. Plus, they’ve outfitted them with serious-looking roof racks and some powerful driving lamps, which are excellent at obscuring the new Mini’s very sour-looking face.

At first I was confused why Mini selected the plug-in hybrid model to use for this trip, since nobody is going to be recharging those batteries, ever. The reason was explained to me, though, and it’s the same reason insecure, homely people get so into things like student governments at school: a little bit of power.

Much more to this article including photos at Jalopnik...