Mini Coupe is great to drive, but it’s not very practical

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Friday, January 27, 2012

I doubt that when BMW re-launched the Mini in 2001 that the company planned the startling number of variants of the iconic car — from the standard One version through a bewildering number of Coopers and then the Countryman.

Another might seem one too many, but now Mini has the very curious Coupe. I say curious because it appears to have been stunted in its natural growth.

The stubby rear end looked to me to be something of a design aberration, but several people of my acquaintance were immediately taken by the look of the car and wanted to know all about it on their first sight of it.

But isn’t that the way of it; subjectivity will always throw up strange anomalies — one man’s meat being another man’s poison and all that.

Even so, I really did not like the design of this car — it just did not grab me in any way, shape or form.

I have seen the roofline being described as like a baseball hat worn backwards and that is not too far wide of the mark.

But I didn’t like it. Driving the car, however, was a different matter altogether.

The thing about Minis is that you are either an immediate fan of the ‘go-kart’ handling or you are not.

BMW decided, at an early point in their development of the modern Mini, that this was the way they wanted to go and, in fairness to them, they have stuck rigidly to that dictate.

Unsurprisingly, this means that the suspension on this car — as with so many performance Minis — is absolutely rock hard and in this regard the Coupe is very much like any of the John Cooper Works versions.

That makes it very much a driver’s car and one which will put a smile on the face of any curmudgeon.

It grips like a leech and corners like it is painted to the road.

The test car was the SD version fitted with the two-litre turbodiesel, which outputs some 105 kW (143 bhp), and if the ‘diesel’ tag is off-putting for any sporting enthusiasts, then that should certainly not be the case, because there is no shortage of grunt or pace here.

Top speed is 226 kph and the 0-100 kph time is just 7.9 seconds, and the really impressive thing is the instantaneous response from the engine at any speed and the vast, even spread of torque available right across the rev. range.

It is a really entertaining drive, to be sure, but like many coupes it is terribly impractical.

The view through the slit rear window is terrible, at best, and when the retractable rear wing hoves into view at speeds over 50kph, there is no rearward vision other than via the door mirrors; oh, and there’s no rear seat either.

The Mini Coupe has plenty of cachet built into it and is undoubtedly — to some — a very desirable piece of kit indeed.

The car is, however, a very indulgent thing and even if it is great to drive, I wonder how many people could actually justify it to themselves.