Mini One 2001 test drive - 2006 hatchback

Sir

Austin mini

It seems that the competition of the 20th century was organized for only three participants - Mini, VW Kafer and Citroen DS. Everyone else is designed to play the role of the extras. However, this is a private opinion. Paris was seething with his natural life: the sound of klaxons, the knock of heels, rumbling of diesel taxis around the triumphal arka. It was recently. And I remembered because nowhere before that I did not see Mini in such quantities as in Paris. And only in one mini there was a silly scum with a laptop in the right seat. In the rest, the contingent is more interesting: jeans peepsi girls, velvet householders, velvet businesswoman with long and thin cigarettes in the same thin and long fingers. All of them came out in growth and face, but for some reason they chose an unpretentious mini in cars. One would think that in France there is a ban on the use of women of other brands.

No, they just know a lot about things here. The capital of fashion. It is understandable: Carden is also combined with Hyundai as Hyundai - with Carden.

Mini, in terms of design, is neutral and absolutely unique, and therefore compatible with any individual. In addition, it can move beautifully: to drive beautifully to the opera, beautifully park at Maxim and beautifully go around the area of \u200b\u200bthe star. And being a decent car (referring to all past merits), rare (referring to the year of the start of production) and English (referring to the neighborhood with Bentley), Mini is also the most affordable model of all that is brought into history under the head of the legend . Go find the new E-Type or Lancia Stratos for $ 10,000! So mini today is not so much transport as an image. I must say that he goes to Paris.

And in Moscow, we were lucky enough to find the mini release until 1984 - on 10 -inch wheels and with all drum brakes - that is, not much different from the very first option.

Mini rode ahead of everyone, cutting the Lincolnes with impunity, impudently running around the road to trucks, the beach either at one side of the trolleybus, then at the other, and in the end disappeared behind the traffic light.

The autumn city, observing his separation, was vicious: hesitated, damn it, these racer on? I tried to overtake mini - after all, Sephia will be twice as much. Where is there! On a straight line, I managed to get hooked on its rear bumper. But in the turn of the mini, without reducing speed and without blinking with the stopari, he ran away from me in a perpendicular direction, as from a standing. From the side it seemed that this box on wheels was developing the same side accelerations as the longitudinal ones. Before that, I thought that cars could not move like that. Now it became clear that the victories of Mini over the Ford Mustang in the Monte Carlo rally were not at all accidental.

Austin Mini went to a Russian man not for nothing. The new owner, being technically advanced, knew why he pays the price of Mercedes of the same age. So another interesting car got into Russia. I must say, I got to the address: in the country where cars are still produced, which are half of the components and assemblies of the 50s-60s, this English car can ride like oil cheese.

Mini is often and almost officially called the mouse for the animated-toy-toy appearance. If you add to this his running characteristics, then you can imagine an elusive mouse from Toma and Jerry, only motorized.

Mini really, as they say, is more inside than outside. Four adult men calmly fit in it and at the same time do not feel the feeling of the elbow. The fifth was just too lazy to get into the salon, so instead another 20 -liter bucket and a photographer fit - they did not climb into the trunk. Landing the driver - as in classic Lada: in an embrace with the steering wheel, legs with a screw, but a little closer in the shoulders and in the top of the head.

To say that all devices in Mini are at hand is to say nothing. In Mini, everything is at hand at the hand of the driver, even the back of the rear sofa. The latter, however, is low and ends under the shoulder blades of passengers, the knees of which simultaneously support the front seats. It turns out a quite rigid inner frame from the berets.

Naturally, 40 years ago, the British generation, which had moved from army villagers from army vehicles, had not yet made high demands on the comfort of small -scale cars. Mini was conceived as a cheap vehicle, the creators (and buyers) of which were donated with amenities for the sake of simple movement. In a word - English Volkswagen. Four decades later, all the same mini, acquiring electronic fuel injection, molded 12-inch discs, electric packages, immobilizers, ABS, and even an automatic box, is far from the cheapest car. Only few people now assign the duties of a family car on him. Today, Mini is bought as a second, if not the third, a car in the house, as a four -wheeled scooter for a single -hander, its laptop and baskets of products. And for the buzz ...

Frankly, I never went to Mini before. But then the case fell out. A liter motor is muttering, as in the old Porsche. With an increase in the revolutions, the tambourine, bypassing the stage of plating, smoothly shimmers into an even lingering rumble. I like this sound! Gas! The car unexpectedly dashingly and confidently suffered.

Addition of mini occurs at the very first meters. Only failures in the old carburetor engine, which you are waiting, does not happen. In the first or second gears, the pedal willingly go to the floor, and the motor easily gives out the maximum moment. Well, where is Mustang? Serve him here! In the third or fourth zeal, weakens. Having snorted a couple of times for blessed obstinacy, the motor continues to take out the box. Passport dynamics - 20 seconds to hundreds. But when there is only 650 kg of the car under you, the feeling is that the earth itself rotates to meet you. Is this not enough?

The most interesting begins. S-shaped bundle of turns. Mini bursts into a turn on full gas and, like a pattern, goes around the eyebrows. Equally naturally passes both in internal and external radii. Honestly, emotions do not allow rationally discussing the rotation, redistribution of the masses and information of the steering wheel. They are not needed. There is only recovery in a turn. The rest is Mini himself. In the way, he allows himself to turn himself, as the driver wants, without any electronic systems for stabilizing the course stability. This car is created for turns.

There was a suspicion that Issigonis could not imagine a direct road ...

The machine was designed almost 40 years ago. It is still produced and has guaranteed sales - with all the inconvenience, very relative passive safety and despite the fact that Mini is not cheaper than some new low -profiles that surpass it in all respects. Except one. The name of which is, apparently, has not been invented.

The legendary, cult, outstanding - what epithets did not deserve this car, how many times the coolest journalistic foreheads tried to solve the riddle of the car, for which its creator was awarded the title of the British crown!

And when in the twenty -first century people will celebrate the centennial anniversaries of some wonderful cars, then it will become known which of them will rightfully be called a car of the age of twentieth.

Ivan V. Paderin
 

A source: Motor magazine [No. 10/1997]