Mini Cooper S: The motoring icon can still put a smile on your face

When a man called Bernd Pischetsrieder – ingloriously mocked by a certain popular television car show host as ‘Burnt Fishtrousers’ – led the BMW take-over of the Rover Group in 1994, he was widely regarded as an idiot for taking on one of the greatest underperforming auto makers in history.

That the decision would ultimately lead to the saving of thousands of British manufacturing jobs and the creation of many thousands more, seemingly meant little those ignorant naysayers who blasted Mr Fishtrousers as a knucklehead know-it-all whose incompetence would not only doom Rover, but BMW also.

While there was room for argument that the takeover could be a tricky financial move, it turned out that Herr Pischetsrieder was something more of a visionary than he was ever given credit for. 

The Rover brand was sold off to the Chinese; Ford bought out Land Rover and Jaguar (before subsequently selling those brands on to Indian giant Tata) and BMW held on to the Mini brand.

That a reinvented Mini would subsequently turn into one of the great automotive success stories of recent times, recreating the genius of Alex Issigonis’ original design for the modern era and doing so with imagination and verve, was testament to the Bavarian’s vision.

That he also oversaw the development of the simple Mini car into an entire brand with a range of models that veered from three-door to five-door, to coupe, to convertible, to estate, to 4x4 crossover and on to electric variants, meant that he had not only breathed new life into a moribund badge, but into a native English industry that was at death’s door.

And, if the Mini brand itself was destined to earn BMW billions of shekels in profits, then there was another sub-brand which was destined to be similarly fruitful – Cooper.

Back in the day when Paddy Hopkirk rallied Mini Coopers to many international successes, he fuelled the dreams of millions of motorists.

The Cooper and Cooper S models were top of the wish list of generations of petrolheads and under the BMW umbrella Mini brought that passion to new heights and to several new generations of customers. Throw in ‘specials’ such as the extremely potent John Cooper Works versions and you have something will satisfy even extremist benzinistas.

Earlier this year Mini unveiled three models which have all received a dickey-up – the three and five-door Minis, as well as the convertible.

This week we try one of those cars, the three door Mini Cooper S – officially labelled the LCI 11, or Life Cycle Impulse 11, which in BMW-speak means it is the second facelift of the car – which is actually the ‘Cooper-Lite’ of those being marketed at the moment, fitted as it is with a three-cylinder 1.5 litre turbocharged petrol engine, as against the top-line two litre version. But more of that later.

The look of the latest Mini has been nipped and tucked and embellished, without losing the essential character of a car which has been such a massive success for BMW. 

The emphasis would appear to focus on ‘piano black’ trim, which appears to be everywhere, from the grille, the enlarged grille surround, the door handles, door mirror caps and the fuel filler cap.

There’s also a wider and lower front bumper to make the car more forceful looking and the rear end gets a similar treatment, with the addition of a large diffuser either side of the centre-exit twin exhausts. You also get those awkward ‘Union Jack’ taillights.

On the inside, there is lots more piano black trim, but the main focus of improvement appears to be concentrated on the infotainment system which is now more intuitive to use (thanks mainly to the excellent rotary controller), has better graphics and is operationally quicker.

The round 8.8” infotainment screed used to seem impossibly large when the Mini emerged first, but by today’s standards where larger and bigger table-esque screens are de rigeur, appears to have shrunk. There’s also the digital instrumentation cluster which has been taken from the e-Mini.

Driver aids have been bolstered (lane departure warning and adaptive cruise control featuring) while there is also a new and more driver-friendly three-spoke leather steering wheel.

New exterior paints and interior trims have also been adopted, including the Multitone Roof colour scheme for those people who like to get serious about the personalization of their Minis.

Under the skin there is a new damper system incorporated which is sort of hard to evaluate given the go-karty character of the chassis set-up which means you get tossed around the place a lot on minor roads, even if the thing grips like a limpet. This is a mechanical system rather than an electrical one and is not entirely dissimilar to that utilised by Ford on the vaunted Fiesta ST.

Now, while the engine here might be the lesser of the options on offer (136 bhp, 8.2 seconds 0-100 km/h and a top speed of 210 km/h), but this is actually a rather fun car. Those figures might suggest that it is not exactly lightening off the mark, but has a top speed worth the entrance money.

Decent enough too is the consumption figure of 5.7 l/100 km (just shy of the 50-mpg mark) and the emission rate of just 129 g/km.

And that’s about the size of it. It will not impress greatly in any traffic light Grand Prix you’d like to engage in, but once you start working those five manual gears, the Mini shows that it is no slouch, leavening a nice torque spread across the rev. range and impressive levels of punch in third and fourth.

The characteristically buzzy engine note is something of a joy – aurally, at least – but if you’re engaged in a lot of motorway work you’d better like it, because it is a permanent companion, along with substantial tyre roar.

But then, give the Mini a decent ribbon of well-surfaced road and you will immediately appreciate the joys of Mini driving, what with sharp-as-a-tack steering reaction and those grip levels mentioned above. That it is so well sorted – and especially so for a front-driver – is testament to the skills of the development engineers.

This really is a drivers’ car and has to be appreciated as such. If you get no real pleasure from the abilities of a car like this, then you should go and buy a Dacia or something.

I must say that after a concerted period of being force-fed electrics and PHEVs, it was a joy to reconvene with an internal combustion engine again, even one which is not blisteringly quick, but quick enough to make you readjust your sensory overload settings.

The three-door Cooper S is not going to suit everyone and particularly so from a practical point of view (it’s very tight back in the rear seats and boot isn’t exactly massive either), but this is a car that will put a smile on your mush and do a good job of keeping it there.

Mini has come a long way since Herr Fishtrousers lashed out the cash to purchase Rover, but he knew what he was doing when he sold off everything other than the Mini brand and set about reinventing it for the modern era. Thankfully, he was proven right and his vision and instinct were unerring.

The new Mini Cooper S is just another example of that vision and instinct. Thank you, Herr Pischetsrieder.