Blast From The Past > MINI Cooper S Review
An Icon - Supercharged.
--from June 2006--
--from June 2006--
Automotive joy comes wrapped in the plastic and sheetmetal of a minute British icon - the Mini. Let's be clear from the very start. The latest Mini - a BMW project - is an elephant next to the original.
Pint Sized
Pint SizedTaller, Wider, Longer - the Mini economizes but affords room, to the front occupants at least. This is not my first experience with the new Mini. I had the great pleasure of driving (by that I mean tearing up the roads of Virginia) in a normal Cooper.
But this isn't the normally aspirated 115 bhp, 4- banger (remember it totes only 2500 lbs) that according to Mini runs from standstill to 60 in a respectable 8.5 seconds. This is the S. S for a supercharged, 168bhp, 4 cylindered racer that purportedly runs to 60 in a scant 6.8 seconds. That's pie-in-the-sky and I'll tell you why later.
Approach the graphite painted with black racing stripes Mini S and delight in its cuteness. Everything's tight and taught, circular and oval, and oh so compact. The antenna atop the roof stands perfectly adroit.
Sexually suggestive Mini? Perhaps, though I think it just adds to the cute factor. Think about it. If you were going to put an antenna on the top of a car, why be aerodynamic? Much about the rest of this car operates in a similarly contrarian way.
Pull the door handle - it's cheap plastic that's made to look like chrome with a firm black lever behind it so that you don't actually pull the whole handle. The window dips slightly � la Porsche Boxster. The door swings heavily open. Solidity in a small car is most reassuring.
Sit on the leather upholstered seat. It's discount-store leather rather than Connolly - but who cares? This car is about fun not luxury. There's a sea of off-white plastic and black toggle switches that faces the driver. In total, it's a total disaster. Ergonomics are not this car's strength.
For instance. The RPM gauge faces the driver through the steering wheel while the large speedometer faces the car behind you on the center console. I don't need an RPM gauge to know when to shift, the engine vocalizes the need. What I do need to know if how fast I'm traveling and it's a good thing to have just below my line of sight and not off to the side.
If I can just find the right button to push...The million and one toggle switches and buttons are also a driving hazard. Try lowering the window. Go ahead, try. It's one of many identical black toggle switches lined up where you have to look down and to the right to find them.
Use the turn signal and a green light flashes both arrows assuming that you already know the direction you're turning. How lazy of them. The old Land Rover Discovery was guilty of this same cost cutting measure.
The front seats are big and supportive. Putting anyone in the back seats would constitute cruel and unusual punishment and must violate some Geneva Human Rights Convention. Still that should not disuade anyone on a college campus from seeing if their whole fraternity can fit in it with the neighboring sorority.
When I first drove the original (2004) Cooper, I found the front wheel driven steering to be sloppy. I remember thinking at the time that BMW must have deliberately sabotaged the front drive works as if to justify their rear drive setups. I had, afterall, driven front drive Saabs and Volvos with much better steering feel.
This Cooper S seems to have received an upgrade. Shift into first (clunkily but it works) and pull forward. The road feel is tremendous even through slow progress. Hit the first turn, poor on the gas and the car takes on an enthusiastic demeanor that nothing else I've driven in recent memory can match.
The steering feels tight, responsive, assuring, (thank you BMW) and well weighted.
The power, however, is not there at all. From standstill, mashing the go pedal is like asking a drunk college sprinter to jump off his bar stool and hit it down the block. There's an agonizing lag (stretching perhaps?) then a slow build up of hissing noise (that's the Supercharger taking in a deep breathe of air) and then finally some power comes forth.
But I have to shift to second now. And we seem to be back to square one for a moment - ah - but then the power is delivered faster this time and so on it goes through the remaining four gears.
However, I must say that the difference in performance between this S and the original Cooper seems non-existent. There is no way to politely make Mini's estimated 0-60 time of 6.8 seconds. It must take some brake revving, clutch dropping, downhill tom-foolery to make that happen (which is never good for one's car).
On the bright side (this car has many), the brakes are terrific. Sure stopping happens right now and thanks to the Mini's light weight and sophisticated ASC stability program, there's great yaw control. Again, it's most reassuring.
This little car's best home may be in the twisties, but find a highway and it cruises politely - and quietly. I am amazed to find such low windnoise in a car that's essentially two boxes welded together. The windshield is quite adroit (and irritatingly short - traffic lights are a neck-craning exercise). The sport-tuned suspension even soaks up bumps in the road decently.
Finding its way home the Mini has delighted with every mile. It's full of eccentricity that just seems so far out of left field that you either accept it or curse it and move on. I, for one, enjoy this machine.
For a car the size of a large golf-cart, the Mini is enormously sophisticated and capable. More power is needed and some interior redesign.
However, if that's not in the cards, I'll still enjoy returning to this greatest of small British icons.
Well done Mini.
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