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MINI COOPER S - Sunday Times
01.06.2002 |
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It's big and it's not clever, but the COOPER S is still brilliant
CAN WE be absolutely clear about this? The car in the photograph has pretty much exactly the same wheelbase as an original Range Rover, so despite what the badge says, it's not a MINI. Okay?
There's nothing small about the price either. Sure, Pounds 14,500 for the base car isn't too bad but then the grinning salesman is going to unfurl the list of options, which is as long as the Bayeux tapestry and just as complicated.
You'll be offered all sorts of unMINI-ish extra features like cruise control and satellite navigation but the only one you really need is parking sensors. The back of the car is so far away you certainly can't see it with the naked eye.
I wouldn't mind but the new car doesn't manage to pull off the original MINI's trick of being cleverly packaged. It is big, but it's not clever. I filled the boot with one shopping bag and there is no leg room at all in the back. None. So when the salesman offers you Isofix child seat fittings for Pounds 20, tell him to bugger off. There's no point.
Then there's the problem with image. The original MINI was famously driven by Britt Ekland, Peter Sellers and Mick Jagger. You bought one and immediately you were on Carnaby Street with Malcolm McDowell banging on the window, demanding to see your wife. The MINI was cool.
Whereas today a chain of London estate agents seems to have bought the capital's entire supply of MINIs, all of which are green with, so far as I can tell, a Basque flag on the roof. Perhaps because of this, nowadays Mick Jagger has a Merc.
The MINI could have been dotcom chic. But thanks to Foxtons, it's just plain dotcommon.
Despite all this, the MINI has been a runaway success. In its first year the BMW-owned factory in Oxford churned out 120,000 of them, making this one model a bigger seller than the entire Saab range. And now it has been been introduced to the Americans who, unsure whether it's a fridge freezer or a toaster, are buying a couple of million anyway. So what's the big appeal? Volkswagen introduced the new Beetle and it flopped in Europe.
So how come the MINI is such a success?
Well, the Beetle is a tarted-up Golf. We know that. But the MINI isn't a tarted-up anything.
It's bespoke. BMW simply took the original car as a character cue and went their own way with a raft of new components and ideas.
Who cares that it's a bit pricey? Who cares that it's bigger than an aircraft carrier? Who cares that Toby's got one as a company car? You see this car and you want one. It's as simple as that.
And now the success story is about to go ballistic with the introduction of the new Cooper S.
Its 1.6 litre engine is fitted with a supercharger so that it develops 160bhp. That's well down on, say, the hottest Renault Clio, but in the Clio you have to slow down for corners, whereas in the Cooper S you don't.
There's an astonishing level of grip and when it does run out, at, say, the apex of a nasty little left-hander, it's not the front or the back that starts to slide. It's all four wheels at the same time. You really can mention the Cooper S in the same breath as the Lotus Elise. It's that good.
And it's an even more amazing achievement when you remember that it's BMW's first attempt at a front-wheel-drive car. When Mercedes tried a similar trick with the A-class, they tripped up badly, and literally.
If I do have a complaint, it's not the whine of the supercharger - that reminds me of the gearbox whine in an early MINI. No, it's the engine itself.
It feels muscular and torquey, which seems wrong somehow for the driving dynamics, especially as it has a six-speed gearbox. I'd prefer a bit more power and a bit less grunt.
But that really is like finding a head louse on an automotive colossus. It's not practical, its not sensible, it's nothing like the old MINI, it's not small and it sure as hell isn't economical, but make no mistake, this is a very, very good car.
And best of all, with the predicted slump in house prices just around the corner, Foxtons won't be able to afford one.
By Jeremy Clarkson