MINI Coupe 2011 Review - International

Not so much
>> Looks will polarize opinion
>> How did it get heavier?

"Try to keep your bottoms hard so you can feel the stiffness," MINI boss Kay Segler insisted to the assembled scribes at conclusion of his MINI Coupe intro speech at the secret Offizierschule der Luftwaffe (Luftwaffe Officer School) base west of Munich.
 
As closing gambits go, it was equal parts amusing and embarrassing -- especially from a car company with a 75 per cent female buyer profile. Everybody looked around the room to the Germans, just in case the English translator had somehow misconstrued something. He hadn't. The should-I-laugh looks spread around the room…

Yet, for all his clumsy wording, he had something of a point.

Besides the quirky Helmet roof on the two-seat MINI (which someone, probably a Pom, is bound to fit with a WWI style Pickelhaube), the headline act is a stiffer chassis, thanks to a huge bulwark across the cabin just behind the seats.

For all that, though, MINI's assembled engineering boffins are disturbingly coy about revealing just how much stiffer than a standard hatch the MINI Coupe actually is. They'll admit, though, that the stiffness of the front and rear body sections is about the same, but the stiffness of the greenhouse (the middle bit where people sit) is "much stiffer". Coupled to that, the spring rates are stiffer and the dampers are stiffer, too, but the weight distribution has, mysteriously, crept forward to put more of the mass over the front axles.

Equally mysteriously, MINI's spin doctors have somehow construed this as a positive, suggesting: "The slight increase in front axle load rating increases traction at the front wheels and helps to ensure the engine power is effortlessly translated into sporty acceleration." Uh-huh…

Yet there's something in the added stiffness because it doesn't take long to realize the Coupe is a very different type of MINI. New MINI design boss, Anders Warming (if the name rings no bells, he did the 5 Series GT) has worked hard for the car's styling to take centre stage. But it's all fairly simplistic stuff, compromised to sit on the hatch's underpinnings and to be roughly the same length and width -- even if it's considerably lower in height.

Instead, it's the suspension boffins who take centre stage, even if the Coupe uses a variation on the MINI Cooper's MacPherson strut front end, electronic steering and multi-link rear end. For the John Cooper Works version we tested, they added stiffer anti-roll bars, springs and dampers and it uses a more-advanced version of the Dynamic Traction Control, the Dynamic Stability Control and the electronic differential lock (all of which are optional on lesser Coupes).

It's a little jet, too, and it has a handling sparkle that the JCW hatch claims and promises, but never quite attains. The stiffness -- which leads all the Coupes to actually come in heavier than their four-seat brethren -- can actually be felt the first time you tip it hard into a bumpy switchback. Whether or not you're hardened your bottom.

Where the hatch can devolve a corner exit into a howl of inside wheel spin, the Coupe flings itself left-right-left like it's having just as much fun as you are. It has none of the hatch's semi-controlled bouncing of the unladen wheel when you punch out of a corner on hard acceleration, either, and it exits every bit as flat and stable as it corners.

It helps that you can switch the electric steering across to a sportier setting, where it's more accurate to your inputs, and it also helps that the 316mm front brakes (the Cooper S and SD use lesser 294mm units) throw out an oversized anchor. Yet for all the suspension stiffness, it's also supple enough over bumps (the harder you press, the more supple it feels) to keep its rubber firmly planted on the road at all times.

But that's the bland truth of it. The reality is that it's just a hoot of a thing to drive, especially compared to the slightly disappointing hatch that promises verve and under delivers.

The Coupe feels lighter on its feet. Lighter even than its 1165kg kerb weight. And it ekes every scrap out of the 205/45 R17 Continental rubber and if there's any body roll to speak of, it hides it well.

It's also plenty quick enough for most people, with 155kW at 6000rpm and 260Nm delivered in a flat line between 1850-5600rpm. And, if that's not enough, you can overboost that in Sport mode to 280Nm.

That's enough punch through the six-speed manual to throw the Coupe JCW to 100km/h in 6.4 seconds and then to keep it going to a 240km/h top speed. There's a cute little rear wing that pops up at 80km/h (MINI's aero guys insist it's needed beyond 120 or so) to tell the police you've been naughty, though it retracts again when you drop under 60km/h.

With the added chassis grip, there's less of the waaah-waah-waaah from the engine as it loads and unloads the inside tyre coming out of corners, so it's more of a turbo blast, and MINI's intentionally made the turbo whistle more a part of the show than it has been before.

The 1.6-litre MINI engine is a deep sounding four pot; constantly threatening with aggression and feels like it will cheerfully rev until whatever it takes to blow itself up in search of a giggle. It's a good thing MINI's given it a rev limiter.

The Coupe's also reasonably practical inside, too. Well, for a two seater. One welcome addition is you can actually carry more stuff in the luggage area (and, importantly, a wider variety of shapes of stuff) when compared to the hatch. There are some useful underfloor holes in the luggage area as well.

And you can do a reach-through from the front seats, because there's a 360mm x 200mm flap in the stiffening bulkhead that gives easy, fast access to the luggage area.

At 1384mm, the Coupe carries a much lower roof than the hatch, so MINI has also fitted the roof lining with two large, oval cutouts so the taller drivers don't need to rub their heads.

The only real issue is that the JCW's clutch/gearshift/throttle pickup trilogy doesn't work in the harmony you'd hope for, and can leave you with some unintentionally jerky shifts, because the clutch take-up is a long way off the floor and the gearlever doesn't exactly slice through its gates. It's more like something you jiggle around until you find a smooth path through the notches.

Yet, we can't help wondering if the JCW is the best petrol-powered Coupe at all, even if it's the fastest. The Cooper S Coupe rides on smaller, 195/55 R16 rubber, it does without some of the stiffer suspension bits and some electronic trickery and it ekes a bit less out of the same turbocharged, 1.6-litre, four-cylinder engine.

On pure numbers alone, it's 20kW shy of the JCW, with 135kW at 5500rpm, and it's 20Nm shy as well, with 240Nm from 1600-5000rpm. Yet the numbers also suggest that it will go further on its 50 litre tank, because it uses 5.8L/100km compared to the JCW's 7.1 (which seems like quite the sacrifice for 20Nm). It's not that much slower -- hitting 100km/h in 6.9 seconds (0.5 seconds off the JCW pace) and running to 230km/h.

Yet the Cooper S's numbers are all we have to go on, because MINI didn't have one at the launch. What it did have was the Cooper SD version, which was almost universally preferred because of its improved ride quality and its effortless low-rev urgency.

The same basic setup as the Cooper S, the Cooper SD scores a 1.6-litre turbodiesel four-cylinder engine instead of the petrol engine. While its more relaxed, lower-revving performance might not always be in keeping with the quirky body shape, it has its pluses.

The first of these is the ride quality, because the higher-profile tyres and extra 10mm of ride height help it absorb bumps wonderfully and its less-stressed gearbox also feels like it needs a lighter hand than the JCW unit (we didn't try the six-speed auto version).

It will pull, smoothly, from less than 1000rpm and it will spin up beyond 4000 revs with surprisingly little coercion, but it's the in-gear flexibility that makes the SD zing through real-world cornering situations. Leave it in a taller gear; throw it into a corner, then just lean on the throttle on the way out. That's how the diesel loves to be driven, utilizing its 305Nm of torque that comfortably exceeds what the JCW can muster.

Add to this that it posts a stunning 4.3L/100km and emits just 114 grams of CO2/km all while getting to 100km/h in 7.9 seconds and you'll understand why it's already our favourite.

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