The original Mini Cooper was a work of packaging magic. The designers managed to fit a drivetrain, four passengers, a bit of storage space, and a zippy personality into a car that is hardly larger than a go-kart. But as most people have probably noticed, cars like that aren't exactly too common nowadays. Depicting the difference between the old and the new isn't too hard, just park an older car in a standard American parking lot filled with SUVs to see how things have changed.

To get a real shocking comparison, take a look at the size of old and the new Mini Coopers. Even though it still wears the same badge denoting it as a small car, the modern Mini has come down with a severe case of bloating that brings the name into question. When a couple of Dutch Mini enthusiasts first saw a side-by-side comparison between the original Mini Cooper and a Mini Countryman, they were shocked and wanted to find out just how much larger the new Mini was. To best exemplify the difference, the Dutch duo eyeballed the two cars and decided that they could fit an original 1959 Mini into the Countryman. Butchering old and new cars only to recombine them later and prove a point isn't a new concept, but it's never been done like this before.

They managed to convince a BMW dealership in Amsterdam to lend them a Countryman and then got to work. After stripping the new Mini of its interior, the two enthusiasts built a 1:1 scale model of the original Mini using cardboard, rulers, razors, and glue. Aside from some deformation on the front end of the cardboard model due to the Countryman's center console, the larger Mini fit the original like a glove. The hood of the old Mini was even able to fit underneath the dashboard of the newer car. Even though the Dutch team proved that the new Mini might not exactly live up to its name, we'd prefer the Countryman's 0-60 mph acceleration time of 11.9 seconds to the original's 27-second time.