Mini Countryman Cooper test drive since 2010 SUV

Mini Countryman - perfect blond car

Despite the delightful handling, Mini Countryman is an ideal blond car ... So far, no one has yet managed to create a car of increased cross -country ability for blondes. Infiniti ex? Too cool controls. BMW X1? Too aggressive.

Mazda CX-7? He is tough, sports he may like the beautiful sex, but to claim the title of girl not in the right.

The only one hundred percent blonde among cars today is on my test. This is Mini Countryman. She even has armpits absolutely white. I looked into its most secret places and collapsed from an overdose with sparkles.

Damn in the center
When you look at the interior of Mini Countryman from afar, for example, leafing through a booklet, you think: entertaining. Sitting behind the wheel and trying to cope with the functions on the front panel, you exclaim: they are fucked up! With the designers. Do you see this huge round pancake that you slapped right in the center? This is a giant musical speedometer. Its peculiarity is that it is not read at all. Just imagine how much strength and skill had to be spent in order to turn such a huge device into a blind one? It was done very elegant. Two strokes. The speedometer arrow was marked with the same color as the numbers, and the latter were turned into an element of decoration. Thus, he became like the aquarium. It is not necessary to feed the fish in it when they die, they are changed on new ones during the next.


Barbie Sport or Bright Hare? This is not a car, but an attempt to make a virtual reality of real

Do you think that's all? No, let's take a look at the front panel more carefully. Under the aquarium in the blind zone, the buttons of the so -called door block of the window opening and the central lock are located. They were removed from the familiar place for all drivers in the world on door handles, because it is ugly. The door was left virgin clean. It now generally serves only the art of any functions. Even lower, where decent cars are already starting a rug, there are so -tummons and windows blocking. I'm afraid to find and turn on all this, you will have to stop on the side of the emergency gear. Don't even try to do it on the go.


All that you see here is nice to observe only when the darkness is thickened over the city

Economy class pussel
You can explain such a daring approach to interior design only a feature of the target audience of this car. This does not bother women with white hair. They do not experience difficulties with opening/closing windows and blocking them. They are not disturbed by a perverted way to include fog lights, manual search for radio stations and climate regulation. Such prosaic issues concern ordinary users who perceive the machine as a complex mechanism. The blonde, sitting down in Mini Countryman, instantly and naturally becomes part of it. She communicates with the car not like us. She does it like a SIM card in a cell phone or a flash drive in a laptop. Because this is a car for her.


Rear places

It is extremely difficult for an ordinary person by designer bells and whistles in mini, and they quickly begin to annoy. The climate block, music, and even the intermittent button of the wiper mode, everything really infuriates here. At the end of the first trip, I was already hot from anger at the design and marketing Anglo-German genius. The multimedia system must be controlled using a joystick removed from the old Tu-154. Only there he played a completely different role was part of the air conditioner, a thin stream directing the flow of barely cold air to the tops of the air passengers squeezed by the economy class. Exactly the same psenka has to be wielded in Mini Countryman. Moreover, it is not fixed at all and skips past the target, like a cat on a slippery floor. Did you manage to highlight the desired function? Now try to click on the pissant for activation? Calm, do not be nervous, try again. The dark -haired entrance is prohibited. Buy for myself the peroxide of hydrogen or Toyota Rav4 and be happy, so I talked with myself, until it got dark in the city.


In the trunk, if desired, another pair of boots will fit.

Night drift
As soon as the night came, the mini Countryman salon came to life, and I finally enjoyed his contemplation. No, I didn't go anywhere. I stood near the cafe on the Sretenka and just looked at Mini from the inside. It has a special button that changes the tone of lighting from orange to purple and blue. I watched the Countryman fascinated either into a shop window or a night bar. A huge speedometer also suddenly found a meaning. It turned out that he was unusually attractive in the dark. And beautiful doors! I solved the riddle of the new crossover. It is for the back of the moon. For the underground world. For a polar circle.


Caution, technical details
Mini Countryman is clearly not one of the machines that our magazine usually writes about. Its design is definitely road. All these cunning Mcpherson pendants in the front and multi -link behind, carrying the body and cartridge handling. Planting as in cars for ring drives. And all -wheel drive plus a road clearance enlarged to 145 mm in many purely passenger monopria cars.

The central differential with an electromagnetic coupling, connected directly to the main transmission, smoothly regulates the distribution of power between the front and rear axles. In the usual movement mode, about 50% of the torque is transmitted to the rear wheels, in extreme situations, this value can reach 100%.

The steering system with an electrical power (EPS), which changes the degree of amplification depending on the speed of movement, is also designed to improve the controllability of the new Mini and make the behavior of the car on the road more predictable. Maybe this is a car for a classic rally? In addition, the Mini Countryman is equipped with a dynamic control system for the course stability (DSC), which includes the anti -lock brake system, an electronic system for distribution of the EBD brake force, the brake control system in CBC turns, the inhibiting system and the aid system for starting on the slope. Additionally, the DTC traction system (standard for Mini Cooper S Countryman) and the function of electronic locking of the front axle differential are offered.

But what can this give to our reader who decided to move off the asphalt? Short overhangs, but a low spoiler and a very small clearance for off -road clearance will at best allow you to carefully drive through a good primer and go to a flat meadow for a picnic. Or play the WRC on the graders of Karelia.

How is he going? you ask. When trying to go off -road, I immediately tore the front mudguard. The experiment was completed on this. And I do not advise you to repeat it. The front is too low. The clearance is not enough 145 mm: my refrigerator has more. The asphalt is much more fun. But not at all because of the manageability, which manufacturers boast on every corner. Like, a wide track, a low center of gravity, wheels placed in the corners ... nonsense. There is no getting away from the fact that a small little car easily and quickly goes into a skid. This, in fact, is invigorating.

Comfort is minimal, since the car is sharpened for sports style. The steering wheel is sharp, the suspension is hard. It does not confirm its puppet appearance by behavior on the road. The trunk is small, impractical. In general, an entertaining toy with independent pendants, a mechanical box and a 1.6 -liter gasoline engine. For bats, inhabitants of Iceland and light brown ladies.


Author: Dmitry Leontyev, photo of Alexander Ortnova-Baranov


 

Source: Magazine 4x4 [April /2011]