MINI Coupe S 2013 Review

“That’s a silly bloody thing, isn’t it?” said a fellow I know, rolling his eyes. “What’d they want to do that for?”

A week before we picked up the MINI Coupe S, I might have agreed with him. It’s an odd looking thing --  self-consciously so -- but things changed when I lifted the tailgate. That’s when it all fell into  (literally) as I loaded it up with a medium sized suitcase, an overnight bag, a duvet, a wet pack and one of those wheelaboard cases everyone has in The Apprentice.

Who’d have thought it? All that in a MINI! No, 278 litres does not a removals truck make, but it’s a way up on the conventional hatch’s miserly 162 litres. Yes, you can drop the split-fold seat in the hatch to expand the space to 680 litres, but it’s still not all that practical and it leaves all your stuff on show.

Oh, and the Coupe also has room for laptops and the like behind the seats, and a handy, largish hatch through the cabin wall to the boot.

That’s about it for storage, mind you. The twin gloveboxes are okay, the armrest opens up to reveal room for a phone (at a price – see options above) and the door pockets are good for a pair of sunnies and, well, maybe another pair of sunnies. It’s a multiple-shades kind of ride, after all.

MINI touts the Coupe as “purely for two”. And so it is but realistically so is the hatch. Put a medium sized grown-up in front of the latter and the seat is touching the rear cushion. For the rest of the time, all that space goes wasted. The Coupe reclaims some of it for cargo.

Yes, they’ve compromised that by giving the rear end a rake of which the Italians would be proud but such is the cost of a visual package designed to polarise. It’s the same strategy Toyota’s used in the Prado-based FJ Cruiser – a radical sheet metal restructure to give an existing platform a shot of look-at-me. And just in case the helmet-head turret isn’t noticeable enough already, they’ve given it a contrasting colour – our burnt orange tester has a black roof.

It works. People do look, in equal number declaring it cute, interesting, ugly, weird or just plain silly. Everything, pretty much, except beautiful. Nevertheless, for MINI, it all amounts to a big Mission Accomplished.

From the wheel, the Coupe delivers the usual Cooper S good news – a snappy, flexible little engine on a snappy, stiff little chassis. There’s plenty of firepower here -- 135kW/240Nm (the latter available from 1600 all the way up to 5000rpm) in a package weighing just 1165kg. There are moments when the front wheels struggle to swallow the torque, but they manage.

It feels faster to 100km/h than the claimed 6.9 seconds (for the six-cog manual – 7.1 with the $2350 auto option). For this we can think of a couple of possible explanations. Perhaps they measured it in normal drive mode – hit the Sport button (inconveniently placed ahead of the shift) and the car becomes palpably more responsive to throttle commands. And there’s the go-kart factor. You sit low, a feeling exaggerated by the high door sills and the low turret. There’s headroom enough in there, but they’ve accentuated the egg-carton effect by scooping out the roof lining above each occupant’s head.

The cockpit is stock MINI. The fat little leather wheel sits among the most responsive and direct in FWD kingdom – this chassis and the electric steering make such a happy threesome with this powertrain. That’s of course if you can stand a bit of tyre noise and a ride that keeps you better connected with the road than some may enjoy. For this driver, it’s an easy price to pay for the rewards on offer.

The powertrain’s flexibility makes the turbo MINI one of the easiest drives on the market. The manual shift is short in the throw and precise, making for quick, fluid changes.

Not that you need to do much with all that torque. This and a light clutch action make it easy to settle into and forgiving thereafter. Stalling doesn’t come easy, while shifts come as if by reflex through corners.

Ergonomics at this level are excellent, and it doesn’t take long to get used to the retro-toggle switchgear, even the window switches on the centre stack.

Downsides not already mentioned? Our tester was thirsty for a 1.6-litre four, averaging 10.2L/100km over our all-urban week, against a claimed 8.2 on the urban cycle (6.3 combined). Okay, most of that was our fault, with help from the Sport button.

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