 |
|
|
|
MINI COOPER - Top Gear
01.07.2001 |
 |
MINI Revolution
With our nightmare trip in an old Mini behind us, it's time to get up to date by sampling its dreamy all-new successor. It's bigger, it's safer, it's glitzier, it's packed with modern gadgets, it's built by BMW in Britain and aims to capture hearts just like the old one.
Socks take on a particularly pungent flavour after being peeled off the feet of a bloke who's spent the past three days trapped inside a ropey old Mini. Climb aboard the new Mini, however, and it's time
BMW has a selection of new Minis regimentally lined-up before us at the plush Umbrian launch venue, all top-spec Coopers in a choice of lurid yellow, red, green or blue. Some twit has parked an Opel Corsa hire car right at the end of one of the rows, only emphasising the fact that the new car is really only Mini in stature according to its bonnet badge. The truth is that it's considerably wider than a full-sized supermini like our Corsa, as well as being rather longer than city car rivals such as the Volkswagen Lupo.
The VW Beetle, meanwhile, was the pioneer of the current crop of rebirths of well-loved cars from the past, while the Ford Thunderbird we drive elsewhere in this issue is the most recent example to make it from show car to production reality.
The new Mini was first unveiled nearly four years ago at the Frankfurt motorshow, so we've had plenty of time to get used to it. While there's room for cynicism about such nods to the past, I simply appreciate the fact that the new Mini has oodles of character, is cute and doesn't want to be staid or boring - when so many cars still do.
I pick the lairiest (and eggiest) colour option possible: yolky yellow with white wheels, roof and mirrors to match. Tacky, yes, but good for the pics. The Cooper's roof, by the way, can be had in your choice of white or black; or painted in the same colour as the body. Take a further gander around the car and all the obvious Mini styling cues are there to be found - the wide chrome grille, the boggle-eyed headlamps, the bolted-on plastic wheelarch extensions and the roof that seems to be floating unsupported on top of the windows.
The only body style for now is a three-door hatchback, with a 'woody estate, a pick-up and a cabriolet all rumoured to follow within the next couple of years. Lift the tailgate and there's plenty of room to guzzle up all our luggage; while inside, in the front at least, there's seemingly shed-loads of space. The windscreen slopes off into the distance away from the driver while the seats are large, supportive and adjust in all conceivable directions. The rears are a little more compact, however, and able to cope with a couple of six footers only if they keep their legs scrunched up and their elbows neatly folded in.
Back to the front then. Before me is one of the most bananas dashboards to be found in any car right now. In Coopers like ours, the rev counter sits in a pod mounted on the steering column, while offset in the centre of the facia you'll find a speedo the size of a Frisbee. Our car has the naffly-titled 'Pepper' options pack, which means that the interior is largely finished in sparkly silver plastic and also gains storage nets behind the seats, a six-speaker stereo and a set of foglamps. Further choices of interior finish are dark, anthracite-coloured plastics or - bleugh - wood trim, including a wood-rimmed steering wheel. Still, the controls all have the chunky simplicity of Early Learning Centre products, including a row of chromed toggle switches at the base of the centre console which operates such gadgetry as the electric windows and the optional traction-control device.
While a more basic Mini One is also imminent, the Mini Cooper that BMW is launching now is a very well specified car in standard form. Six airbags, power steering, leccy windows, tyre-pressure warning system and 15-inch alloy wheels are all thrown in, while the options list is sufficiently sizeable to allow you to spec it up to the levels of a shrunken BMW 7-Series, should you so choose.
An eight-speaker Harman Kardon hi-fi, a six-disc CD autochanger, a flash satnav system incorporating a telephone and a colour monitor, rain sensors to adjust the wiper speed, an auto-dimming interior mirror, 16-inch or even 17-inch alloy wheels plus an extra pair of head-protecting side airbags can all be chosen. Phewee.
On a scorching day like this, though, I'm just revelling in our car's optional twin benefits of a full-length electric glass sunroof and air-conditioning. As I said, this Mini is, in so many ways, a complete contrast to the old one.
The doors shut with the same weighty thud that you'll experience with a far pricier BMW 318i saloon. In fact, get moving and you could still almost be convinced that that's the car you are riding along in.
The new Mini's four-cylinder, 1.6-litre powerplant is, on the whole, a revvy and very refined effort - just like the bigger BMW's 1.9-litre equivalent. The Mini's engine is built by Chrysler in partnership with BMW at a plant in Brazil, then shipped to the ex-Rover plant in Cowley near Oxford where the rest of the car is bolted together.
Which brings us briefly to the subject of the new Mini's confused nationality. It's sold by a German car company (you can buy it from one of 150 specially assigned BMW dealers in the UK), was styled by an American designer, has been developed by a combination of British and German engineers, is powered by a South American engine and is mostly built in the UK. To cut it short, if such matters bother you, then the new Mini is just about as British as any product from Jaguar, Aston Martin, Vauxhall or Ford on sale right now.
Pulling up near a local market to ask directions, I'm soon surrounded. For the locals around here in Perugia at least, the Mini's origins are far less ambiguous, our jaundiced example attracting several shouts of "Inglese, bellissima!" I have to assume it's the car they're talking about.
Once I have worked my way back onto the suggested launch route, it takes us out into the gorgeous, rolling green Umbrian countryside, including two sections of fast dual carriageway plus a large helping of near-empty hilly hairpins along the way. This is the first time anyone has been let out on the road in the proper finished article, so the engine on our car has covered barely 200 miles. But, even with some running-in still to do, it pulls fairly strongly, being a little gutless to begin with, but then really picking up and dishing out its full 115bhp as it whizzes on past 4,000rpm.
There's plenty of easily accessible overtaking punch to be unearthed, while the essential figures of 0-62mph in 9.2 seconds and a 124mph top whack prove that this is a modest, if not screamingly rapid, little hottish hatch. The upcoming supercharged 163bhp Cooper S should sort that situation out satisfactorily.
Back to our Mini Cooper and at a cruise it's already feeling so much more sophisticated than you'd expect from a small car like this, such supermini alternatives as a Toyota Yaris T Sport tending to thrash raucously along at a 70mph-or-so trot whereas this Mini remains really quite remarkably quiet. It's economical too: a drive-by-wire throttle dishes out the unleaded more accurately than a conventional accelerator and the electro-hydraulic power steering means the engine doesn't need to put in the extra effort to drive a separate pump. These factors work together to allow a healthy quoted combined fuel economy figure of 42.1mpg.
Matching up well with the engine, the five-speed manual gearchange is also exceedingly slick in its action, needing just the tiniest of flicks to execute a change of ratios.
Town-bound poseurs, on the other hand, will find that a continuously variable Steptronic transmission is offered as yet another optional extra and can be coupled up to steering-wheel-mounted shifters linked up to six programmed ratios. Both gearbox choices will become available on the entry-level 90bhp Mini One.
BMW's rigorous and reassuring approach - that is, over-engineering everything it gets its mitts on - continues with the Mini's under-pinnings. Its body is claimed to be at least twice as structurally stiff as that of the average supermini. The suspension is a neat combination of space-saving MacPherson struts at the front and an advanced multi-link set-up at the rear - the sort of setup usually reserved for larger, more expensive cars.
Alongside the optional traction control (and fitted to our test car) is BMW's optional DSC stability control system - another item off the big-car component menu. This system detects when the Mini has snatched into an understeer or oversteer skid. It cuts the engine's torque and pumps the anti-lock braking system on any of the individual wheels to help bring the car back under control. I soon find that you'd need to treat a new Mini in an outrageously yobbish manner to have call for such a piece of active safety kit to help you out.
Pushing on a little now, having quickly become fully familiar with the car, once again that illusion of being in a far larger version of the 318i is beginning to creep back in.
Tackling one crumbling, lumpy backroad that a tractor has just sprinkled with hefty clods of baked-dry dirt, the ride quality remains impressively settled and comfortable. Faster undulations see none of the bouncing about that cars with such short wheelbases tend to put their occupants through. Indeed, drive gently and this is an easy car to get along with. Visibility is generally good, the driving position is still ideal even with a couple of hours of driving behind us, and the clutch and gearchange are refreshingly light in their operation. Find a few hairy twists, though, and the steering proves to be weighty, yet only moderately quick in its action. BMW's press release bumf talks of the Mini having 'go-kart type driving feel', which might have been the truth with any old Mini - even our old banger - but isn't truthfully the case here. It might be so if we were talking about a Ford Puma, the current benchmark for driving entertainment in a small front-wheel drive car like this. The Puma has very quick, crisp steering and a nimble chassis, but on the downside it can be uncompromisingly solidly sprung when it's asked to tackle a scabbily-surfaced road.
The Mini, on the other hand, is very different - though over a longer run it's just as enjoyable in its own way. Once more it feels like a bigger car than it is. Though it lacks that final increment of sharpness and communication that makes the titchy Ford coupe such a memorable car to take for a brief blat, the Mini is generally the more composed, upmarket-feeling vehicle of the two. It's highly agile by most standards and is also unexpectedly relaxing when you are less in the mood for swiftly hacking along. That's handy when you have got the carabinieri in a mean-looking black Alfa Romeo 156 sitting a truncheon's swing from your tailgate for the next 23 miles - as I found out.
Find the chance to lose the plod and play once more, and grip levels are generally high, the front tyres being coaxed into squeally understeer on these dry but dusty roads only with a smidge of over-enthusiasm. Lift off the throttle with the steering loaded up and the back end can be made to join in the cacophony, too.
I guess the new Mini would stick to the tarmac with even greater eagerness if BMW hadn't fitted comparatively skinny 175mm-wide hard-compound tyres as standard, a decision likely to have been taken to lower rolling resistance and shave off a few extra nought-point-somethings of an mpg from the fuel consumption figures. We're also told that the Mini One, when it comes, will be less athletically set up than the Cooper, sitting 8mm higher off the ground, lacking a rear anti-roll bar and having a slimmer anti-roll bar fitted at the front.
The Mini's techno fest continues with the braking system. Ventilated front and solid rear discs are fitted, as is ABS. The brakes themselves are strong, responsive and resist fading even after a good pummelling. Also fitted is a Corner Braking Control device, which moderates the braking pressure sent to each wheel halfway through a corner to prevent the car going out of control should the driver need to make an emergency stop.
On this occasion the whole welter of gadgetry is there to help, not hinder, the driver. As we have said, the Mini drives just like a far larger Beemer that has been shrunk. More than that, the high levels of equipment and excellent all-round build quality make it feel like a car costing in the region of twice the £ 10,300 that will be asked for the Mini One, or the £ 11,600 that our Mini Cooper will set you back.
Up until now, all that would buy you was a well-specced Corsa or Fiesta - neither carrying the kudos of being built by BMW or being nearly as distinctive to look at.
Space requirements permitting, the new Mini would be a fine thing to live with on a day-to-day basis, no matter what type of driving you tend to indulge in. It's compact, economical, relaxing on the motorway and yet can prove to be plenty exciting enough when you want it to be.
It's also the sort of car I could easily imagine heading off on a lengthy schlep in and yet still arrive totally unflustered. 1,300 miles from Italy back home to good ol' Blighty in a couple of days? Easy
Are we reviewing a car or road-testing an entire lifestyle? It's impossible to tell these days. In the case of the new Mini, it's both, although judging from the T-shirts worn by some of the support crew during its Italian launch, the new Mini lifestyle is not one I personally would subscribe to. Luckily, our test car's CD player didn't contain a copy of the Village People's greatest hits, but I wouldn't have been at all surprised if it had. Horribly touchy-feely marketing has dogged the new Mini from the off, and an endless parade of motor show appearances has seen some of its novelty value evaporate. Which is a shame, because if you strip away all the flim-flam you're left with a fantastic little car. Many of the old car's virtues have been preserved, and there's no doubt that having a wheel at each corner really does result in what the experts might call chuck-ability. Granted, you can't lob it down the road with quite the same fearless enthusiasm that you could the original, but you're now far less likely to end up in hospital should you get a bit carried away. Modern inventions like airbags and anti-lock brakes help here. The new engine is surprisingly refined, the steering is fabulous, and ride is good overall but the choppiest surfaces. Criticisms? The 115bhp-engined Cooper version doesn't get into its stride until well into the rev range, the interior is imaginative but over-cooked, and somebody forgot to put the back seats in. Actually, I wasn't going to mention them because this car is supposed to be all smiley and fun but frankly you wouldn't offer to run your worst enemy to the bottom of his driveway in the back of a new Mini. You might squeeze in a Village person, but the rest of the People will be on the bus home. Never mind. It looks good, it feels good, and it's even good value. Line it up beside a VW Lupo, a Vauxhall Corsa or a Ford Fiesta - which would you plump for?
|
Model |
three-door hatch |
|
Engine |
1598cc 16-valve four-cylinder, 115bhp |
|
Performance |
0-62mph in 9.2 seconds |
|
|
maximum speed 124mph |
|
Price |
£ 11,600 |
|
On sale in the UK |
July |
|
Rivals |
Ford Fiesta Zetec S, Peugeot 206 XSi, |
|
Likes |
good to drive, easy to live with and feels far more expensive than it is |
|
Dislikes |
not as sharp as existing Mini Cooper owners might have expected |