It was great fun recently having the MINI Cooper on test but most of us who started off with the old Mini as our first cheap no-frills car would find little or nothing comparable. The Cooper in its earlier manifestations was that bit more elite and, being souped-up, it was very definitely a car in which to show off the driving skills.
Like the MINI itself, the face the Cooper version presents to the world is instantly recognisable, just as you know straight away what the new VW Beetle is meant to be. There the similarities end, though. The Beetle is based on a Golf and has a completely different layout to the original. The MINI is all new and yet faithful to the ideals of its original founder, Sir Alec Issigonis. It has a transverse engine and front-drive. Not everyone might agree with BMW's assertion that it isn't retro.
The MINI Cooper's stance and proportions, the shape of its lamps and grilles, its chrome highlights and badging - even the Cooper's contrast-colour roof and lookalike Minilite wheels - are indebted to the original. That's what most of us probably would have expected. Anything else wouldn't have justified being called Mini or even MINI (BMW's chosen all-caps spelling).
What it doesn't have is the original brilliant packaging of Issigonis. It's actually 20mm longer than a Mercedes-Benz A-Class, the car that comes closest to bringing the Issigonis ideas on maximum passenger room within minimum dimensions up to date. BMW says defensively it has made the newcomer as short as possible while meeting the internal objectives for space and crash protection. Designer of the current car is Frank Stephenson, an American working in Germany, and at the Irish launch last year he asserted that his profile of the car was what Issigonis would have produced, had be been designing it now.
This is BMW's first effort at a transverse-engined, front-drive car. Unlike the Issigonis Mini, there are five gears instead of four, and they're in a separate box at the end of the power unit rather than in the sump. The engine in the Cooper is a 1.6 litre 16-valve sourced from Chrysler in Brazil. That was our only serious quibble with the car: the power unit lacks mid-range for pulling out of slow corners and picking up on overtaking speed. Oddly, the problem isn't so pronounced in MINI One, which has 25bhp less to call upon.
WE can happily report that the chassis helped us forget some of our frustrations with the engine. This is where its competence is most evident and the Cooper shows a beautiful, taut agility through the curves and the bends. There's little body roll and it drives with stylised composure. This smart behaviour comes from simple suspension struts at the front with a modified version of the current BMW 3-series axle at the back. The Cooper also has a rear anti-roll bar, missing from the MINI One, and it rides 8mm lower.
It wasn't all theatrical driving during our test. The Cooper was a perfect companion in city driving and unlike the gargantuan Range Rover of last week, it was wonderfully receptive to parking spaces. A mixed bag of driving, slow and fast in both city and open road modes, produced 30mpg.
Other statistics of lesser importance are top speed 125mph and a 0 to 62mph time of 9.2 seconds.
The steering has electronic power assistance that varies so that the driver gets most help at low speed. When he or she needs weight or substance, it's there and there's driver reassurance from the front tyres too. The car has equal length driveshafts that curb tugs at the wheel when making rapid getaways on poor road surfaces. Disc brakes at all four corners, execute equally sure stops, with electronics to prevent lock-up.
It may all sound absurdly high-tech to those of us who remember those old frugal Minis. We did find the cabin decor reassuringly familiar: there's a hint of the Audi TT about it. However, the panels that look metal aren't, they're plastic. All in all, though, everything has the solidity expected of a BMW and there's no suggestion that the car has been built down to a price.
The speedometer is big, round, silver-faced and located in the middle of the dash while the Cooper's rev counter is in a little pod on the top of the steering column. There's a full-width shelf, just as there was on the original car and no glovebox. Where it might be, is occupied by the passenger airbag - one of four that come as standard.
Toggle switches work some of the minor controls but they're shielded to prevent them puncturing knee caps in a serious accident. Around the rest of the cabin, it all gets more modern. There are a couple of cupholders almost on the floor, near a gear lever which is short and chunky and as far removed from the long poker affair of the '59 Mini as it's possible to get.
THE shift is short and light and it makes changing slick and precise.
The door pockets are elaborate arrangements built into huge oval armrests and door pulls, but anything of any size falls out of them in spirited driving. It's impossible to adjust the front backrests when the vast doors are closed, and the tilt-and-slide mechanism that gives rear access, doesn't always return those forward seats to the position they were in previously.
Slide them right back and they almost touch the two rear seats. With a six-foot driver aboard, there's not really the knee or foot space for another adult behind, although the headroom is good. We did try the back seat for a while at the international press launch in Italy: it was tolerable although there wasn't a six-footer in front.
It's a two-plus-two cabin, or maybe a three-plus-one. The boot is for shopping bags and maybe a small weekend bag, unless you lower the backrests of the two equal-sized rear seats. There's no spare wheel. Depending on the wheels, it's a matter of a puncture repair kit or tyres that can be driven at limited speed without coming off the rim.
Finally, to price. That's maybe the biggest shock to the system, especially to those of us who were original owners. The original in its most basic form sold for around £500. Prepare then for a €20,070 ex works tag for the MINI One while the uprated Cooper is € 22,690 ex works.
Actually, new MINI and MINI Cooper contradicts a lot of our notions about why a car should sell. Pricing isn't a factor and neither model will be bought for the way they go. Buyers won't be upset by the shortage of rear seat and luggage space. It's the looks, style and image that really count.
Issigonis crafted his Mini as a minimalist way of transporting four people. It was almost an accident of birth, because of its cute baby configuration, that it turned out to be such a joyous little thing to drive. BMW clearly were unusually sensitive about replacing a car with such a heritage. A brilliant job has been done (engine apart) of understanding what the Mini was all about and preserving it. Welcome then to a British icon, reinvented by Germans and made in Oxford, in the heart of England.