The two-seater Mini Coupé may not have have all the distinctive looks of its siblings, but once you get behind the wheel its fun-to-drive Mini credentials shine through.
Talk about driving a Mini in the 21st Century and you could be referring to one of an ever-growing collection of cars, each of which sport the iconic Mini badge.
There’s the Mini Hatch, the Clubman estate and the all-electric Mini E.
Since last year there’s been the Austrian-built Countryman – a crossover vehicle with five doors, a longer wheelbase and the option of an all-wheel-drive powertrain (basically a Mini on steroids).
There’s also a convertible version and there’s the super-powerful, far-too-much-fun-in-one-small-space Mini John Cooper Works model.
The newest model to join the BMW-owned Mini family is the Mini Coupé. It’s a car that still looks like a Mini (just about) and gives a drive that’s as much fun as other Minis but which pushes what a Mini can be to the limit.
The big difference comes with the styling and the fact that for the first time you’ve got a production Mini that comes with just two seats. Some coupés have back seats with legroom that would only be fit for a double amputee. The designers of Mini Coupé have opted not to go with the illusion that the car can take rear passengers, instead going for a boot that’s big enough for the car to be used as an occasional hearse, with a mighty 280 litres of space.
And because there are no rear passengers the new Coupé has been able to abandon the traditional Mini ‘two box’ design (a small box containing the engine at the front, with a bigger box behind it for the passengers and luggage). Instead you’ve got a ‘three box’ design with the engine compartment, a truncated passenger compartment and the addition of a new dedicated luggage compartment at the back (it’s a hatchback, but the elongated design makes it look like a fully separate boot).
Add to this a much bigger slope to the windscreen, a lower more squat roof that, from the side, has the look of the aerodynamic helmets that Olympic track cyclists wear and you’ve got a lean machine that’s built for fun and adventure rather than for transporting a driver and three passengers around.
It not only looks sporty, it is sporty – when you put your foot down it hugs the road giving you the confidence to take control and push the car hard.
It’s more masculine than previous Minis – think striking colour combinations and go-faster stripes rather than feminine pastels. There’s a rear spoiler that pops up once you go over 80km/h. A toggle allows the driver to raise it below this speed should they want drive slowly past pedestrians while showing off their new car’s sporty credentials.
There are 1.6l versions in turbo and non-turbo form, but here in Ireland the dealers will no doubt be pushing the 2.0l SD version, as this version combines sportiness with an impressively efficient diesel engine. It’s got plenty of torque when throwing the car around country roads, it can do 0-100 km/h in under eight seconds, but also falls into Tax Band A, meaning you get to benefit from road tax of just €104 per year.
For real petrolheads there’s a petrol-fuelled treat available. It stands to reason, then, that if the Coupé car is all about sport and performance, it is the perfect car to benefit from the brilliance of a John Cooper Works model.
Turbocharged
Mini haven’t disappointed. The John Cooper Works version is very expensive and moves very very quickly and confidently, managing 0-100 km/h in 6.4 seconds and, thanks to a turbocharged 211bhp 1598cc four-cylinder engine has a licence-losing top speed of 240 km/h, making it the fastest production-model Mini ever.
Inside all versions there’s the quirky-cool design and high build quality that modern Mini owners have come to expect.
It makes sense that Mini have launched the Coupé now. We’ve reached the point where BMW have been producing Minis for a full decade. Having established what a Mini now looks like, BMW are in a position to play around with what people expect.
Up next will be a roadster version of the Coupé and where the existence of a market for a two-seater Mini Coupé may be questionable, there’s no doubt that ever since the Mazda MX5 burst onto our roads there’s been a hungry appetite for two-seater convertibles. In fact, I can see the two-seater Mini Roadster being a much bigger hit than the current four-seater Mini Convertible.
It’s widely expected that the Coupé and it’s soft-top Roadster variant mark the end of the line for the current family of Minis, with whatever comes next being the first in a new generation of the iconic brand.
Until then we’ve got a new car that may not fit every Mini aficionado’s view of what a Mini should look like, but which is certainly distinctive and which deserves to be thought of as a true driver’s car.
Coupé prices start at €24,010 on the road. The Coupe SD will cost you €29,010, with the top-of-the-range John Cooper Works setting you back €37,040.
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