First Drive Review
No less than 39 years after the first Mini Cooper S blatted its way into the annals of motoring history with its John Cooper-tuned 70-hp Series A BMC engine, the new Cooper S rises from the carnage of BMW's disastrous British dalliance sporting 161 bucking horsepower from a supercharged 1.6-liter cyclone.
One wonders what Paddy Hopkirk and the boys would have accomplished in the '63 Monte with all that power and a six-speed gearbox to control it. Or how the lads over at John Cooper Garages would have snickered into their pints every time they heard a BMW executive say, "Mee-nee Coo-pah."
No matter. Amusing twists of history aside, the new Cooper S is a grin on gatorbacks, a marvelous lunch box packed with tantalizing Bavarian sweets and decorated on all sides with updated images of Britain's best automotive icon.
Even the people who didn't think to put their names on waiting lists a year ago will eventually have a crack at a Cooper S for a base price of $19,850, a $3000 premium over the base 113-hp Mini Cooper. Even when padded with a few of the $7100 worth of luxury and performance options, the Cooper S's price places the blown Mini in the ring with other hot boxes already on the market, namely, the Ford SVT Focus, the Honda Civic Si, and the VW GTI 1.8T ("Desert Foxes," March 2002).
And to those cars the Cooper S need make no apologies. It looks authentic and tugs hard at the asphalt through a chassis tensed for action but refined beyond the expectations engendered by its price and Lilliputian wheelbase.
You will know a Cooper S from the 20,000 Minis that will hit U.S. streets over the next 10 months by its front fenders, which read "S" on special chromed ducts. Sharper eyes may pick out the S's unique 16-inch "split Y" aluminum wheels or optional 17-inch rims, the roof spoiler, the chrome fuel cap, or the tiny twin tailpipes that poke out of the center of the rear bumper like twin Brownings. And if you miss all that, the menacing slot above the grille that plumbs air to the intercooler is a dead giveaway.
That the hood swells by just 1.6 inches to fit the 82 pounds of extra engine hardware is a testament to the engineering at work.
"Packaging was the biggest challenge on this design. It was 60 percent of the effort," says powertrain leader Johannes Guggenmos. "You can see that there is no space between the front axle and the front bumper."
Mounting the supercharger halfway up and forward of the transverse-mounted, cast-iron block was an exercise in musical chairs. This is the water pump's address on the base engine, so engineers evicted the pump, relocated it behind the blower, and redesigned it to drive off one of the two rotor shafts of the Roots-type Eaton supercharger. The pump and related plumbing partly dislocate the cold-air induction, which now curves back over the six-speed Getrag transmission to park in the battery's spot in the base car.
Where did the battery go? Well, that's a whole nother story. It landed in the spare-tire well, conveniently left vacant by the yanking of the spare tire. That's right—all Cooper Ss will ride on new run-flat tires from Goodyear, Dunlop, or Pirelli.
Run-flats fitted to Lexus SC430s have earned a reputation for offering a quivering ride and dubious traction, but new developments in the rubber compound and sidewall design mean that "this is the first time a car with run-flats can compare with one on conventional tires in performance, wear, and comfort," claims BMW chassis development director Christian Auer. "This will be the future in tire technik."
With those words still hanging in a vapor over Lisbon, we headed into the Portuguese hinterlands to find cruel roads on which to test the statement. Rolling on Dunlop 195/55 V-rated rubber and 16-inch wheels, the Cooper S has a relatively velvety ride, even though the spring rates are also about 10 percent stiffer than on base Coopers (which also have thinner roll bars and 0.3 more inch of ride height).
