Mini Cooper 2001 test drive - 2006 hatchback

Super Cooper

This car has been produced for almost four years. Quite a little, when compared with the predecessor-aunt, who saw the light in 1959 and lived on the conveyor until 2000. An extremely long production time, and the sales volume - more than five million pieces - inspires respect. But this is a tiny and completely impractical machine. However, the criterion of practicality in this case seems not too correct.

The model has grown and is now denoted not mini, but mini. This is still a beloved toy, an accessory in the rank of a fetish, a welcome participant in the filming and image stocks. However, on the road, Mini will not give himself offense, despite the modest dimensions (in any case, in the metropolis - in the natural habitat).

Everyone likes Mini - the image is finished and, apparently, outside of time. At least, for a short period of sales, the appearance is completely out of place, and is unlikely to be obsolete in the next decade. However, according to the laws of the modern automobile market, restyling must be done every four to five years. Accordingly, the bright blue Mini Cooper S, which was with us, is an improved and supplemented option for the starting version. Of course, the neoclassical appearance was practically not touched. Outside, a new car can be recognized, for example, by modified front and rear headlights. In particular, in front, the xenon gun of the nearby is now surrounded by decorative lights.

Inside the change is also cosmetic. The speedometer changed the residence permit, migrating to the center of the panel. Now he will be frighteningly clear to passengers that they really rush in this box at a speed of 200 km/h. The tachometer, by the way, remained in the same place as he was on the steering column. It is justified, especially if you take into account the sports (not pseudo, I note) the orientation of the hatchback. However, a tall driver can be disappointed, since the steering wheel will close him the upper part of the device. The adjustment does not save - the tachometer moves with the hub. But in the very least information can be considered.

The second of the few ergonomic Mini mistakes is the flimsy and uncomfortable handles of the backs of the seats, and they fulfill their duties every other time. Otherwise, everything is wonderful. Low landing, excellent visibility, the correct location of the keys on the central console. Supending finishing materials - BMW Style. Inserts to the color of the body additionally revive this eccentric interior. Almost vertical windshield and square windows are simply touched. Once again, you should pay attention to a number of switches stylized for racing toggle switches. Original and beautiful!

Despite the fact that Mini is positioned as a three -door hatchback with a full four -seater landing formula, we can recommend it in such a capacity only by a company of miniature girls or a not very tall married couple with two small children. If two adult men sit in front, the Mini landing formula immediately turns into fairly hard 2+2. However, there are few capacity here.

A couple of words about the match. The car is produced in two types of body - like a three -door hatchback and a convertible. Cooper S is the top version of the lineup. The step below is the Cooper model, under the hood in which there is a 1.6 liter engine with a capacity of 115 hp. Even lower - mini One in two versions, gasoline (90 hp) and diesel (75 hp). Cooper S has the same 1.6 liter engine as Cooper (Chrysler development, assembly is carried out in Brazil), but equipped with a mechanical supercharger that produces 0.8 pressure bar and brings a power to 170 hp. (7 hp more than that of the prerestyling version), and the torque is up to 220 nm (it was 210). The dynamic indicators did not improve much (for example, acceleration to 100 km/h decreased by only 0.2 seconds), but the elasticity of the power unit increased markedly. The starting version of the Cooper S suffered by void on the bottoms, now this drawback is partially eliminated, and Mini has become more receipt.

The pedals are equipped with aluminum overlays. The Accelerator is floor - as in the senior BMW models. The seats that seem to be small and frivolous at first glance, in fact, they record the body well. The steering wheel is small and chubby, covered with leather, three -spokes. The knob of the six -speed checkpoint is metal and round. To complete the sports picture, there is not enough Start/Stop Engine button - sorry. However, it turned out well. One has only to move off, as a small city sport begins!

You can’t ride mini slowly. Despite the fact that this car (Mini in general and Cooper S in particular) in our country is considered unambiguously female, its character is unambiguously male. The steering wheel, for example, rotates with a decent effort. The mini accelerates aggressively, fervently whistling with the compressor, viciously rumbling with a configured release and hanging with rubber, if you overdo it with traction. Stops - like dug. You are sitting low - you look at the driver's niva from the bottom up, like an uncle in H2 - and therefore, probably, passport 7.2 seconds. up to hundreds are perceived in practice as 6 seconds. on Lancer Evo VIII.

Mini is perfectly tuned in the chassis. He moves confidently, easily swallows the little things, but throws sidelines on the bumps. There are almost no rolls. And how exactly this car is breaking! The information content is excellent, and the clutch of tires with the canvas is simply perfect. A small base and widely placed at the corners of the wheel of the wheel is a special driver! Front -wheel drive cards - this is what comparison comes to mind. Any turn turns into a mini -attraction - the car writes it so tasty that this exercise wants to repeat and repeat it, increasing speed over and over again.

In the urban stream, Energy Correspondence Mini seems to be exhaustive. Excellent maneuverability, multiplied by the capabilities of the power unit, allows in a sluggish traffic jam to slide between the rows of cars, inspiring their owners with the idea of \u200b\u200ba better life. But on the track the picture is no longer so positive. The air flow howls in the angular outlines of the body, the noise of the engine and release presses the ears, gloriously buzzing in the arches of the wheel. And behavior at high speeds is not so stable. A hard suspension readily reacts to a poor coating, steering is required.

In mini sliding, it is quite good, especially on slippery coatings, where all phases are maximally smooth and stretched. With a handbrake, the car willingly stands across the road and is perfectly controlled by traction and steering wheel, slipping with all four wheels. To expose a car without obvious provocative measures, for the discharge of gas, a high speed and well -known driver's skills are required. When driving on the verge of gas discharge, the car is screwed into the turn, slightly throwing the stern. In general, on a dry coating with a clear provocation, be prepared for a sharp breakdown and even more sharp stabilization.

Passing the turns in show, you can get no less pleasant sensations. This is not an old rally mini from the last century, but modern, and the cinematics of the suspension of this machine was calculated on a smooth asphalt coating, for which Mini, I repeat, clings with all its might.

Apparently, the image of Mini implies the presence of a number of strange solutions. Once in the car, the liquid in the washer ended. In search of the opening handle of the hood, I shook the whole space around the driver's seat - it turned out to be ... next to the passenger! Then the liquid was flooded into the neck of the washer, which was discovered on the left. However, after five minutes of barren attempts to clean the windshield, the gas station had to be repeated. It turns out that on the left is a tank for headlights, and the one that is on the right is responsible for the windshield. However, such turmoil in the case of Mini is not irritated, but rather amusement. Since not like everyone else, then in everything!

It seems that Mini is unlikely to last as much in the conveyor as Mini. Times are not the same, updating is constantly required. But it would be very interesting for the years in thirty -five years to take the next restyled Mini Cooper S for the test, put the old compact and burn in Moscow in 2040, recalling the long -lasting days in Moscow.

Mini prices and equipment

The simplest and lowest mini One will cost when buying 19.500 euros and will please the next standard equipment. ABS, EDB, CBC (a control system for entering a turn that allows you to slow down directly in the turn by redistributing brake force to more loaded wheels), front and lateral airbags for front passengers, the Mini Mobility system (a set replacing the spurt), gur, central castle And an immobilizer, a 5-speed mechanical gearbox, adjustable steering column, fog lights, electric mirrors and glasses, rain sensor, front glass heating, heating the front seats, an on-board computer, air conditioning, a car radio. Frankly, it’s not good.

Cooper prices start at 25.200 euros. ACS+T, contrasting the roof and mirrors (black or white), chromium decoration, sports suspension, halogen front headlights, 15-inch all-linked discs, tire control system, ventilated brakes, leather/fabric, leather/fabric, leather and leather pressure control are added. The steering wheel, Visibility Pack (heating of the windshield and lateral mirrors), the rapprochement sensor during parking, automatic air conditioning, CD-Player.

The top version of the Cooper S will cost the amount of 30.800 euros. It finds a system of control of the DCS course stability, aluminum finishing of a gas tank cover, a sports body kit, xenon headlights with a washer, a stainless steel exhaust steel system, a spoiler, an air intake on a hood, 17-inch wheels with 205/50 tires (they work, despite, despite the 205/50 tires to a puncture), a six-speed checkpoint, a Plus sports suspension (9 mm understatement), sports seats, multifunctional steering wheel, climate control.
No matter what lovers of full -fledged cars say, accustomed in the literal and figurative sense to look down on folk micro -lines, there are real masterpieces among these babies. Here, for example, mini. Inside, more than outside it was first said about him. Everything was not like people here: a body, turned inside out (welds), arranged in its corners wheels the size of an alarm clock, a tiny motor deployed across with a box, an over -compact suspension with rubber elements. And where else can you see the radiator installed along the body? All this made it possible to release 2640 mm with a dimensional length of a machine of 3050 mm under the salon!

Add to this a discreet, but irresistibly attractive and easily memorable appearance with a radiator grill stretched into a wide smile. It is clear why, barely appearing, Mini immediately gained enormous popularity. And, by the way, its creator, Greek by origin of Alec Issigonis, received the title of a knight from the English queen.
 
The first mini was released in 1959. It was a time when the USSR and the USA proved to each other, and at the same time to the whole world, whose rockets are cooler. When Fidel Castro arranged a mess on Cuba, whose consequences are the islanders who still can’t get out. When the world was shocked by the emerging mini-skirts, named after the car loved by everyone, and not vice versa, as many believe.
 
It doesn’t matter that this smallest full-size car in the world (by definition of one magazine) was at first as far from the concept of comfort as the North Pole from the South (constant drafts in the cabin due to sliding plastic windows and laces instead of internal doors doors yet the worst). But an affordable and reliable means of delivery from point A to point B four people and their toothbrushes. There was simply no place for a larger place.

The design turned out to be so light that its manufacturer British Motor Corporation was to reduce the maximum speed and not set more powerful and expensive brakes, even went to reduce the engine volume from the original 948 to 848 cm cubic meters.
 
The need for the car turned out to be such that it stood on the conveyor for more than 40 years and was produced in seven countries on three continents. Among the owners of Mini were the august persons, sports stars and show business. The proof of a high assessment of the design is this fact: in the competition, the Mini car of the twentieth century took second place. The solutions laid down in it are recognized as a standard for many compact class models.
 
Having improved from year to year, the machine received a number of engines of larger volume and power, increased diameter wheels, windows and other attributes of at least minimal comfort. Some models of recent years of release were offered with a 4-speed automatic, an electric packet, ABS and even air conditioning and a pillow. In the mid-60s, an attempt was made to provide a machine with a standard HydroLastic with a BMC product with BMC products. But because of the tiny wheelbase, it did not work.

Along with the standard body in the Mini wardrobe, convertibles, pickups, and trucked vans also appeared with a fashionable outer wooden frame. Especially for London excursions, one enterprising car rental company installed an open four -seater imperial with a staircase along the rear wall of the body on the roof of its mini - why not a miniature two -story bus?
  
The military had prepared a suitable for landing using a parachute version of Mini Moke with an extremely simplified open body and folding cloth top.
 
The brainchild of Issigonis turned out to be worthy as a sports projectile. The racer, designer and owner of the stable of the same name F1 John Cooper noticed Mini one of the first. Already in 1961, he prepared his version of the Mini Cooper with a 54-horsepower engine and front disc brakes. Later, Cooper was modified repeatedly, its engines became standard for serial mini.
 
Stunning acceptance in combination with ease of control and high reliability left a little chance on rally routes much more powerful rivals like Ford Mustang, Alpine Renault or Porsche. The Mini Cooper/Cooper S Mini Cooper/Cooper Signat in the European Rally Championship in 1965 and more than three dozen of absolute victories in international rally, including three in prestigious Monte Carlo. There would be a fourth, if not for the machinations of competitors and not offensive (because of their unreasonableness), disqualification in 1966 on the actually defeated car of the judge found a neo-mologous switch of near-dal light of the headlights!

P.S. The Great Enzo Ferrari had three mini at different times, the first of them is a gift from the Issigonis itself. And Ferrari understood a lot about engines and chassis! And if he after one Mini acquired two more, then is this not the best recognition of the outstanding advantages of the model?

Vladimir Nikolaev

Source: Motor magazine [No. 5/2005]