A MINI Cooper S showed up where I hang out recently, and everyone seemed in awe of the little car. Convinced that this car was the most foolish car since the YUGO, I had to go see what the big deal was myself.

The love of the MINI Cooper seems to be taking over the country through a decent advertising campaign in MAXIM, on Billboards in NY, and in product placement in movies. However, only about 20 thousand will arrive on our shores. We should do the same thing we did when the Red Coats arrived in 1776, kick them right back to England.

Styling.
Some people find the MINI Cooper to be "cute" I suppose if you find the pregnant roller skate look "cute" then it is, but the car looks like the failed late 78-84 Peugeot Le Car. And that can't ever be construed as a compliment. Purists will say, "ooo it looks like 60's styling. The Mini Cooper has been around before, don't you understand the "retro" movement?"
And I'll ask, you still wear bell bottoms and flower power t shirts? There's a reason why those are gone. The styling of the MINI Cooper needs to go also. The same people who love the PT Cruiser will love the MINI Cooper. "well my mom says I'm cool!"
However, you do get a lot of people turning their head when you drive around in this thing. Is it just the newness of it? I don't know, I'd turn and look just because it's ugly, but I'd pay to see the bearded lady at the Circus too.

But moving away from styling, what is it about this car people like?

The engineering? Engine by BMW. I've never owned a BMW, and doubtfully will, but BMW's are notoriously expensive to work on, so this may not bode well for the future of MINI Cooper owners. Time has not passed long enough to evaluate the Mini's reliability. But BMWs are generally reliable, so perhaps with regularly scheduled maintenance, MINI Cooper owners will be fine.

SPACIOUS?
Front seats are comfortable enough for a medium range trip, but I wouldn't want to be in them for 2 hours. And as for the back seat, I think the DeLorean had more room back there, the Ford Mustang would be considered downright spacious compared to this. The only adult I can think of who would fit in the rear seat of the MINI Cooper is "Mini Me" from the Austin Powers film series.

The rear seats do fold down, so you could bring back more than two grocery bags.

Can you have sex in this car? Are you going out with a midget?

The MINI Cooper S comes with one good thing, a SUPERCHARGER. Superchargers are always good, because they give more horsepower. This little supercharger pushes the MINI Cooper S to an amazingly anemic 163 HP @ 6000rpm, the base Cooper has an even more pathetic 115 HP. (Still, this horsepower is not bad considering it is a 1.6 liter 4 cylinder engine)
Having virtually no horsepower, the car must have virtually no weight in order to go fast, you see how small this ugly thing is? Well it doesn't have much weight either, coming in at a little over a ton and a quarter. So, with a supercharger, it can get up and go at a medium pace. Nothing mind blowing for sure, with posted specs of 0-60 at 7.3 seconds, and a top speed of 135mph. Not being the best manual transmission driver, I couldn't come anywhere near matching the 0-60 sprint, it felt downright pedestrian watching the needle make it's way to the 60mph mark.

Watching the Speedometer:
Odd, if you want to check your speed, wouldn't taking your eyes off the road for a very short time be preferable?
One would think so, but apparently the MINI Cooper designers do not think. The speedometer is sitting over in the dashboard, not in an instrument cluster behind the steering wheel where it should be. The Tachometer is in a more convenient location, which is all well and good in a race car, but not in a road car.

6 Speed Tranny.
MINI Cooper S is only offered in manual transmission. The regular MINI does have an automatic. 6 speeds are good, and seem to be becoming a trend at long last, for those of us who want more speed.

SPEED
Limited to 135 mph. Fast enough in a little bitty go cart I suppose, but outrun by nice V8 American cars, and even some V6's. Getting into the top speed argument, many will claim that is fast enough. Who wants to go faster than that? I do. I don't do it often, that's for sure, but I'm happy to have a car with a limit of 150mph. Sure, that's only 15 mph more, but it is more, and we all know, more is better. But for a change, I have to agree with the "who needs to go that fast?" crowd. The car is so light, the ride is rough, it just doesn't feel safe going upwards of 120mph.

Handling/Ride
The MINI Cooper is downright rough riding. In Rhode Island, we don't have the greatest roads, in fact, they are downright pathetic. Massachusetts isn't much better, so bumps are common, and they are transmitted through this car and it felt like I was on my riding lawnmower. OK, a bit of an exaggeration, but this car transmits bumps to the occupants harsher than the old 5.0 Ford Mustang does. Riding around you sure know if the department of transportation cared about smoothing out the pavement that day.
The handling is far more impressive than the rear wheel drive mustang. The Cooper does seem to enjoy being thrown around corners and sticking to them. With the very low center of gravity, and 16 inch tires, it holds turns well with very quick steering response.
So, it handles well, but rides rough.

Tires:
I've heard people complain in the past about not getting a full size spare tire with their car. How about getting NO SPARE TIRE AT ALL with your car?
Enjoy the MINI Cooper. Equipped with run flat tires, it has no spare. So essentially, if you get a flat, you're going to be due a visit and a wait at a tire store, rather than dropping off a rim while riding around on your space saver for a day and picking up the tire later. (The battery is hiding where the spare should be) Can't very well ride around on 3 tires. You know you have a potential flat when the indicator comes on in the speedometer, it's a nice feature, but having an extra tire would be nicer.
Need I mention these tires are expensive?

Fuel Economy
You get very good mileage out of the MINI Cooper line. Depending on the model, you'll get mid 20s in the city to low to high 30s on the highway. Impressive, but not earth shattering. You've also got to use the more expensive high octane gas. Not that this is all that big a deal right now with gas prices relatively stable.

Size
The silly little car is all of 12 feet long. This is great for parking in congested cities such as Boston. But I can't think of anything else good about a 12 foot car in a land increasingly dominated by 20 foot SUV's.

Thinking about crashing the MINI Cooper?
It does have 6 airbags. I suppose this is very important, if you plan on surviving a wreck with a vehicle 2x as heavy and riding higher. I don't care how many airbags the car has, I'd hate to be T-boned by a Cadillac Escalade going only 35mph in a car which sits so low.

OPTIONS
MINI Cooper has some interesting options, like GPS systems, sunroof, heated seats, 8 speaker stereo (in a car this small you really need 8 speakers??) and even some ridiculous options, like different color roof, or chrome gas filler cap. That's just tacky.

FINALLY,
The controls aren't always user friendly compared to what we are used to.

Do you want a MINI Cooper?
Better hurry, dealers are jacking up the prices already. Don't figure you can get a great deal on one right now. Like the equally ridiculous PT Cruiser, if you don't buy it, someone else will. And dealers know that.

The 30 year absence from American shores was not long enough. The British are coming! The British are coming!
Amount Paid (US$): rented
Condition: New
Model Year: 2002
Model and Options: S