Short Take Road Test
There is a handful of cars that look very different from anything else on the road. They attract attention mostly for their snappy styling. Volkswagen's New Beetle comes to mind, so does the Chrysler PT Cruiser. The Mini Cooper falls into this trendy category, but unlike the others, it has some serious sport baked in, which is what we've always liked about this car, especially the supercharged S model.
Like the two other eye-catchers we've acknowledged here, the Mini follows suit, adding a droptop version (naturally aspirated and supercharged forms). We got the hot one, all 1.6 liters and 168 horsepower of it, connected to a six-speed manual.
A base Mini Cooper S convertible fetches $25,450, or $4500 more than the coupe. The droptop premium is in the ballpark with what you'd fork over for a topless PT or Beetle. With another $3220 in options, our car dressed out at $28,670, including $1300 for blue leather, $550 for an upgraded sound system, and $420 for the Cool Blue Metallic paint job. The only thing we wouldn't live without is the $250 cruise control.
Anyway, the $4500 gets you a serious convertible top. It's fully automatic, requiring only the push of a button to stow it, and has a glass window. The driver doesn't need to unlatch anything. And surprisingly enough, the Mini can be ordered to put its top down by simply pressing on the key fob, which sounds more like a Mercedes-Benz feature than something on a 25K convertible. Another innovative feature: When you press the top-down button—even at speeds up to 75 mph—the top will recede 15.8 inches to let a little sunshine in.
We were then further surprised to discover that this Mini weighs just 114 more pounds than the last Cooper S coupe we loaded onto our scales [ C/D, October 2004]. The convertible's trunk measures six cubic feet with the top up—in fact, one cube larger than the coupe's. Problem is, it's hard to stuff things through the small opening. However, the back portion of the top can be unlatched by reaching inside the trunk and then lifting it up and out of the way, and that makes loading much easier. With the top down, the trunk loses two cubic feet of storage space and the loading feature.
The Mini looks stylish top up or top down. More important to us, the Cooper S's sporting nature has not been compromised. The ride is another thing, though. It's as firm as ever, with a stiff suspension and unforgiving run-flat tires. The problems begin when the road turns bumpy. Uneven pavement sends shudders through the Mini's cabin. The rearview mirror shakes until it is useless. The steering wheel wobbles in hand. Interior panels rattle into a racket. It's not terrible, but if the suspension had been softened a tick, à la Mustang convertible, things likely would have worked out much better.
Convertible models often trade rearward visibility for their tops' foldability, and the Mini has suffered in this regard. With the top up, the already limited rear view is further compromised by the headrests and roll bars, which create a U-shaped porthole view out back. Top down, the view is much improved, but it can still be difficult to see over the folded roof. What's nice, however, is that the windshield is far forward and fairly upright, blocking much of the rushing air and making the Mini a real open-sky experience.
It doesn't stand to reason, but despite the slight weight penalty, this convertible is the best-performing Mini we've ever tested: 0-to-60 mph arrived in just 6.6 seconds. The narrow 195/55R-16 Dunlop SP Sport 3000A tires held on for 0.87 g, 0.02 g better than any previous Mini. And braking from 70 to 0 mph required just 155 feet, an astonishing 14 feet better than the next-best Mini. That distance is within a couple feet of the stopping ability of our long-term Porsche 911 C4S [May 2005]. How's that for sporty? And these numbers flat-out shame such competitors as the New Beetle and PT Cruiser.
So the topless Mini comes with a few small penalties but still looks just as stylish with a cloth top and retains its sportiness. In the $25,000 convertible segment, it doesn't get much better than that.
