Mini Cooper 2001 test drive - 2006 hatchback

Minimum compromises

I wanted to advise readers to pay special attention to this car, but I believe that even without my recommendations, the view of the strong half was already caught on huge wheels, and a slight neglect of the next ladies' machine managed to replace with respectful curiosity. Indeed, attempts to attach a new mini in the same line with Daewoo Matiz, Fiat Punto or Volkswagen Polo will be doomed to failure. After all, the word mini applies only to its name and to modest dimensions, and otherwise the most common term will be maxi. For this baby is striking in a whole bouquet of radical solutions worthy of other supercars. Incidentally, the already mentioned seventeen -inch discs with low -profile rubber visual example of this. They not only look great, they are also equipped with an air pressure sensor, and a special design of the tires allows you to move at a speed of up to 80 km/h in case of puncture.
 
And here. The hood rises up with the head optics and part of the wings just like Fiat Coupe, Dodge Viper and Ferrari 456GT. Under it is a motor with the warlike name Pentagon, the joint development of BMW and Chrysler. Moreover, these engines are produced not somewhere, but in distant Brazil, at the Termec enterprise. Mini himself is from British Oxford. But it is no secret to anyone that the car was designed by the BMW concern, which has owned the Mini trademark since 1994. By that time, the British slowly was working on the successor of the original mini, but the Germans abandoned most of their ideas, starting all almost from scratch. The result of seven -year efforts in the photographs. Do you believe that the company, which traditionally specializes on the rear -drive, has been able to take and make a good front -wheel drive car like this? The answer is a little later.

   

I admire mini and guess what I will have there, inside, with my childish growth? Fortunately, the fears are completely far -fetched doors in the size of Poluzov, almost at a right angle, opening access to a spacious interior. Spacious for the driver and his satellite, since the existence of the rear seats can be forgotten here perhaps the kids. The same applies to the trunk, ready to accept only a couple of bags from the supermarket. If the seats are folded, then the trunk capacity will increase four times, but to drive such a car with suitcases from the Kitch region breathing in the back.
 
The interior gives the impression even more toy than the car itself: bright red upholstery, plastic painted for metal, huge dials-bundles, but things come across and very adults. For example, climate control and stylish toggle switches at the bottom of the central console, one of which deactivates the ASC+Tal anti-bowing/anti-sceneration system. Or four airbags. Well, in the list of options you will find inflatable curtains, a dynamic stabilization system of DSC, xenon, acoustics from Harman-Kardon and even control of an automatic transmission from the steering wheel. What a defenseless ladies' machine!

  

Despite the fact that the overall level of Mini ergonomics is quite high, and the claims can only be presented to the wise system of adjustments of the front seats, the visibility from the driver's place at first plunges into shock. The racks of the body taken far forward chop off the panorama observed through the windshield, and it is necessary to monitor the corner traffic lights through the side glass. Oddly enough, but this is not annoying, but rather surprising, and after a couple of hours with this feature of Mini you get used to it. But with tiny external mirrors getting used to get much more difficult.
 
From the first meters of a trip by car, surprises sprinkled like out of an abundance. To begin with, our Mini Cooper was equipped with a stranded CVT variator with STEPTRONIC, that is, with the possibility of manual switching. Before ensuring maximum acceleration, the variator expects the engine output by 2000 rpm, which, in combination with the known sluggishness of the motor below, makes a sharp start impossible. In the movement, Cooper behaves very decent, even better than cars with conventional automatic machines, but the delay in the reactions of the machine to deep pushing the accelerator pedal is still noticeable. A completely different picture is observed when the variator is translated into manual mode. The car and from the place breaks away more willingly, and the driver responds to the orders of the right leg much more quick. Gear shifts (or rather, fixed ranges, which are six here) very quickly, however, even in this case, CVT does not compete with the mechanics, since after reaching 5600-5700 rpm, an automatic transition to the next range occurs, which violates the plans to a certain extent a person sitting behind the wheel. I liked the ordinary sports regime of the variator most of all (turns on by the translation of the gearbox lever from position D to the right), when both the car holds cheerfully and the driver is spared from unnecessary manipulations.
 
The brakes are close to the ideal. Powerful, sensitive, amazingly transparent. And technologically advanced. To the already familiar ABS systems and the distribution of brake efforts, a system of control over the braking in the CBC (Cornering Brake Control) is added here. In order to prevent skidding in the bend, it will increase the pressure in the brake cylinder of the front external wheel, preventing the development of excessive rotation.
 
Shakes mercilessly. Pits, cracks, chips, seams are all yours. However, for some reason you feel positive emotions from this! Why? Probably because the passage of irregularities is not accompanied by blows, but with elastic shocks. The road relief is not transmitted to the steering wheel, it does not require adjustments to the trajectory and at the same time you get information about the condition of the coating.
 
Colleagues-journalists compare Mini with the card, and I am ready to join them, because you can’t imagine a more accurate and reliable analogy. Here the landing is so low that you feel the road profile with a fifth point, and the same variator. And, of course, sensational handling. The responses of the car are so lightning and verified that sometimes it seems: Mini begins to turn before you yourself came to the idea of \u200b\u200bthe need to turn, and it is already the same course that you laid in the imagination!
 
The steering wheel is heavy, the returning force impeccably displays each degree of wheel rotation. However, as befits a truly sports car, Mini combines obedient obedience with insidious. Untimely discharge of gas in a steep turn can lead to a turn not even help ASC+T! But this threat only spurks, fingers excitement, especially since at an early stage the skid is elementary. It remains only to congratulate the Germans on the undoubted success: Mini is one of the best front-wheel drive cars, in some ways even the best!

  

Moreover, Mini is one of those few machines that teach the owner to rely on feelings, on intuition. It is enough to spend one day with her, and you already feel the dimensions of the car like your body, climbing into such cracks on the move that you are amusing your own courage. You predict the speed with an accuracy of 10 km/h without any speedometer, which is very useful, since the constant search for this device will not end with the eyes with the eyes. You turn on the toggle switches on the central console, turn off blindly. Well, you prescribe the turns as if from a young age I did not get out of the map.
 
Probably, there is no more meaningless car, as well as there is no car that would have more meaning. It all depends only on what you demand from the car: to be a vehicle or become an integral part of you. This little mini is ready to become your great part. And there is no other such one in nature yet.
 

The car is provided by Avtodom.
 
Text: Leonid Klyuyev
Photo: Roman Ostanin
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Source: Wheel magazine [No. 61/2002]