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Claudia Hommel
Cabaret Singer
Extraordinaire
Cordell Koland
Car Writer
Weekly Reviews
 2006 Mini Cooper S Convert JC by Cordell Koland Talk about a lucky break. A long week with perfect weather arrives and at the same time there¹s an opportunity to review a Mini Convertible. There are few vehicles that can bring more joy to driving. So inspired, I kept looking for places to go, errands to run, people to see. The test car was not just any Mini Cooper convertible, but the S model with the John Cooper Works engine upgrade. If there is such a thing as karma, I must have been the equivalent of Saint Francis in a former life. So what's all this Cooper stuff you ask. There are two important individuals in the development of the original Mini prior to BMW's take over. First, there was the designer, Sir Alec Issigonis, who gave the little car its highly efficient body. Secondly, there was the racing entrepreneur John Cooper who gave the car its soul and its second name. Mr. Cooper¹s company successfully raced the little Mini to three Monte Carlo Rally wins between 1964 and 1967. The original Mini Cooper beat the pants off of a lot of larger, more powerful cars in the glory days of the original Mini and bestowed on the mighty mite a reputation that survives to this day. Although John Cooper passed away, his son now runs the company and it supplies after-market performance parts for the new Mini. The John Cooper Works upgrade in now a factory-installed option at the Mini plant in England and carries a full warrantee. The package turns the usually sprightly Mini into something like a scalded cat on steroids. The package as delivered on our Mini Convertible includes an upgraded sport suspension and brakes, light alloy sport wheels, limited-slip differential, engine performance components as well as exterior and interior carbon fiber trim pieces. The result is an engine output of 207 horsepower in one of the smallest vehicles sold in America. Oh yes, the exhaust note is definitely more throaty and aggressive. Note must be taken of the limited-slip differential. This unit does a great job of controlling power delivery for an ultra-performance front-wheel- drive vehicle, a nagging engineering problem that plagues many front-drivers. In our Mini test car there was no judder, squirm or torque steer as I engaged full power on take off or going around a tight-radius curve. You can just jump on the accelerator and feel the engine pull smoothly ahead. There's a price to pay for all the performance parts. The John Cooper components add $6,300 to the price. All together, our test Mini sports a price tag that nearly hits $38,000. For this kind of outlay, you could also be looking at a decent Audi, Acura or Lexus. But you'd probably be deficient in the sex-appeal department. The Mini remains about the cutest thing on four wheels currently available. And given its agility on a particularly twisty road, the Mini Cooper as tested has few peers at any price. While we really love to drive the Mini on short-haul trips, the car does exact another price in terms of road noise at fast cruising speeds. And for longer excursions that very taut suspension, which eats up winding country lanes like a defensive tackle devours steaks at the training table, delivers an overly hard ride quality. The exterior design of the Mini Cooper is wearing very well after five years on the market. The proportions for a small car are just about perfect. I have seen photos of the next generation of the Mini and I will have to be persuaded that we will see real design progress. The Mini's interior, however, is a fertile field for potential redesign. The components are there and they all work. But visually the cockpit is an example of plastic overkill. I think that it needs a good redesign to calm everything down and put it in its proper place. Vehicle: MINI Cooper S Convertible with John Cooper Works Engine Price as tested: $37,750 Engine: Type: Supercharged inline 4 Horsepower: 207 @ 6,950 rpm Torque: 180 lbs.-ft. @ 4,500 rpm Fuel economy, manual transmission City 25 mpg Highway 32 mpg Curb Weight: 2,844 lbs. Cordell Koland is an automotive journalist based in California's central coast. He can be reached at cordellkoland@oakparkjournal.com |
