Mini Cooper 2001 test drive - 2006 hatchback

Blood Brothers

Car for the driver - two approaches
At first glance, they do not bind them in the table of ranks. Prices, sizes, engines power and even the type of drive are all different. Any marketer will easily explain to you the image difference between the BMW M5 and the mini merchant S, noting the kinship of souls - after all, cars of one eminent Bavarian concern. At the same time, cars are by no means ordinary and well -deserved glory was won like real driver cars, when you can fully enjoy the control process itself - all that the creators laid in them.
It seemed to us that the M5 and mini character seemed to look just at these aspects of the character of M5 and mini, while they have in the asset and what is in the liability.

Cult lighter
Today I have done more risky overtaking than in the last two months - with this remark of my partner at the Dmitrovsky auto policy, acquaintance with Cooper S. His words very clearly confirmed the pallor of the photographer standing nearby - he did not recover after the drive and extracted with naughty hands From the coffee equipment.
I was eager to get to know this car - talking about his phenomenal controllability quickly reached Moscow. And now he is nearby in all its glory, and even in the fastest version of S, equipped with a drive compressor, which allows you to remove as much as 163 horses from a 1.6-liter motor. However, God with them, with numbers - we will check them during measurements, and now, as soon as possible, to feel the character of the machine.
Like an elegant expensive costume, Mini takes you into his arms. And then suddenly the pronounced style of its interior is pushed into the background, and the first is clear control organs, the most convenient steering wheel and a tachometer that catches the eye. Two or three hand movements - and a dense profiled seat with intelligible lateral support has already been fitted. Another moment - and the salon is filled with incomparable sounds of the engine tearing into battle. Start!
The arrow of the tachometer jumped up, the steering wheel came to life in her hands, a mechanical six-speed gearbox snapped almost in a harvest. You can’t evaluate all this according to the familiar scheme, leisurely weighing all the pros and cons. Here, the usual instant is dissolved in one single desire - rush forward, completely forgetting about the exterior and about the interior.
Only a few minutes later I recall that I never found a speedometer and with surprise I find it, similar to a large pan, in the very center of the front panel. It turns out that it is far from the most necessary device here, everything else is so informative.
Unknowingly sharp and in a horn, sharp steering wheel does not allow to be distracted for a second. The instant reactions of the car itself seem to be ahead of your thoughts, and very hard pendants allow you to instantly merge with the machine. Of course, you forget about imposition and comfort, but in order to feel the car as yourself, you accept it unconditionally. However, the extraordinary capabilities of the engine are not the only thing that captures you: Cooper S is so a little and highly intellectual in communication with the driver that even his accelerated abilities seem not so important. At least not only they make the heart beaten. If you ever had to manage a racing card, you will definitely understand how it intoxicates a sense of power over the machine, even if it moves in sliding. In the character of a mini cope, something similar is traced, which allows not only to feel the car to the subtleties, but also to control it.
... How quickly a working day flew - it is time to say goodbye to the mini. Accelerated and brake dynamics have already been measured, controllability was assessed. Each of the lucky ones who sit at the wheel cannot restrain emotions: Mini Cooper S is a lighter one hundred, and maybe more than percent.
Commonwealth of character and technology
After such an remembered acquaintance with a mini merchant S from the prospect of communication with the BMW M5, you expect different: the sensation of the Commonwealth of Luxury, High Technologies and impeccable technical solutions. Moreover, when sometimes you hear that Emka is no longer the same, which is more and more reminiscent of an ordinary burgher car, equipped with a powerful engine. And that the latest electronic systems (by the way, fully present and in mini) turned it into a high -speed shell for autobahns, which rejected a true driver destiny.
With such thoughts, your humble servant went for a car. Indeed, our first date was not too emotional. Giving the tribute to the correct classical appearance, the nameplate with the branded tricolor and the wide eighteen-inch tires, as much as the 35th series, I got used to the internal content for quite some time. It was a desire to reconfigure the adjustment of the seat (the benefit of them there is excess), then there was a need to change the position of the steering wheel, then the abundance of the tooth switches began to interfere, among which for some reason it could not be found right away. In general, the M5 was even difficult to communicate, however, like most Bavarian cars.
Then we circled the city for a long time and tediously, enduring endlessly in traffic jams. It was humanly sorry for this four-hundredth monster, which is unable to demonstrate the hundredth part of its potential. Nevertheless, even in these conditions, the traction supply is so great that an excellent clear six -speed gearbox seems to be not needed. It is quite possible to ride according to the I-II-V scheme, and to the latter to contact already 40-50 km/h.
Finally, the relative scope of the highway near Moscow. The speed increases noticeably. Meanwhile, the photographer and I continue a leisurely conversation about something there car. Suddenly he recalls his stormy journey to Mini. And in fact, on the M5 we also make countless overtaking, impulsively accelerate and inhibit, but the car does not resemble a sort of racing cramp, which does not allow us to distract from the road for a second.
Of course, on a BMW, with an increase in speed, the steering wheel becomes tougher and stricter, helping to feel better, but four trunks of the release system are sung more soundly. The suspensions that seemed overly tough in the city suddenly begin to work in a different mode, and the car seems to fly over the road. To blame him for at least some inaccuracy when performing driver’s commands does not turn. The ice of detachment quickly begins to melt: like old friends, we now understand each other at a half. And yet, deep down - doubts: will he be as interesting and understandable when driving on the verge or even beyond the permissible?
At the landfill, the photographer, as always, interferes with the sun. In the meantime, I am getting to the most interesting. The stabilization system has already been disconnected. On a circle with a radius of 60-70 meters, a second gear is included. Further, the barely noticeable movement of the accelerator, the smooth correction of the provoked drift - and the car obediently hangs in the controlled sliding, as if circus is a circle of circle behind the circle. Millimeters of burning rubber hang over the platform with blue smoke, and all doubts about the abilities of the M5 are instantly disappeared, crushed by colossal side overload. What to say there: the combination of the rear -wheel drive, a powerful motor and an excellent chassis can start no less than the clarity and speed of all relationships on the mini. Later, almost 260 km/h of the maximum worships reached on a dynamometric road will be obtained, some completely unrealistic seconds of elasticity on the IV, VI programs and the same unrealistic for ordinary cars, when you feel that inhibition from hundreds for ordinary cars will appear. M -fifth is so, a warm -up. In the meantime, we are something one and indivisible with our five, and from this understanding you become infected by driver excitement no less than a merger with a mini.
Abstracts without emotions
The fact that both cars sunk into the soul for a long time is not necessary. But it is obvious and something else. With the general similarity of sled characters, they are still designed for different consumers. Mini Cooper is primarily a sense of any change in the mood of the machine and a complete merger with it in motion. In the mini, for granted, you perceive impulsiveness, in sporting hard suspensions, a sonorous voice of the motor. Probably, if you deprive it of this expressiveness, it will turn into an uninteresting cult toy, a kind of remix on a once -popular car. Having laid in the current mini cumper an overabundance of their own self, the creators achieved the main thing - everyone likes him, fascinating even pessimists with their exclusivity. As usual, not only character is exceptional, but also the price of 30,800 euros, somewhat different with that distant, but much more affordable mini.
In the BMW M5, much more just a car: powerful, dynamic, but practical and prestigious. A full -fledged salon, exquisite materials, luxurious additional equipment. Even the price of 112,000 euros does not shock. Another thing is surprising: all this external surroundings are harmoniously combined with a real fighting character, when you can be the first not only on an autobahn, but also in much more stringent conditions, without stopping enjoying life.

 
 
 

 


Text / Sergey Voskresensky
Photo / George Sadkov

Source: The magazine "Driving"