SA Road Tests

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This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. I drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under real-world South African conditions. Most, but not all, the vehicles driven are world cars as well, so what you read here possibly applies to the models you get where you live.

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Back to Minis past: 2016 MINI Cooper convertible a/t

Immensely enjoyable

Posted: 17 May 2016
Pics by BMW-presse

The cheat sheet
Base price: R397 000
Engine: 1499 cc, 12-valve, inline three-cylinder turbopetrol
Power: 100 kW at 4400 rpm
Torque: 220 Nm at 1250 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 8.7 seconds (a), 8.8 seconds (m)
Maximum speed: 206 km/h (a), 208 km/h (m)
Real life fuel consumption: About 7.2 l/100 km
Tank: 40 litres
Boot: 160 litres, but seatbacks fold flat
Maintenance: 5 years / 100 000 km
Servicing at 20 000 km intervals

It’s like going home. This is a MINI that hasn’t been stretched, fitted with too many doors or robbed of its character. It’s something you put on and wear, like a favourite jacket that fits just right. We’re talking about a 2016 Cooper convertible – 288 mm (almost a foot) shorter than a Paceman, on a wheelbase cut by 101 mm and noticeably narrower and lower too. The only oddness was that the test car was fitted with a six-speed automatic. Our inner purist objected at first, but one adjusts.

We offered one of our print editors, an ex-Paceman owner, a quick spin for old-times’ sake – up through the Midlands Meander to fetch her teenaged son from school for the mid-term weekend. “Oh dear, this could be awkward,” she said, noticing that it offered somewhat less rear leg room than her old car had. But appearances deceive. We slid the left chair forward a touch, so that son James could still fold himself in without too much trouble, and relegated Mum to the back seat for the homeward journey.

We usually spend an hour or so exploring electronic gadgets just before the car’s fleet manager arrives to claim it back, but this time it wasn’t necessary. James had his phone paired with the car’s infotainment system in nothing flat so that the “old folk” could listen to some alternative music for a change. He then cycled through the built-in toys while pointing out the features of each. It saved time and meant that everything could be found and demonstrated safely while Scribe attended to driving.

The soft top opens or closes, at the press of a squared toggle switch, in 18 seconds and can be deployed at speeds up to about 30 km/h – probably an operation best kept for traffic jams. When open, it folds itself neatly up on top of the bodywork above the boot lid where, unfortunately, it blocks the lower third of the vista through the rearview mirror.

When driving topless, with no-one sitting in the back seat, one clips a folding screen across the open area to cut down on wind turbulence. It fits or removes in a few seconds and, when no longer needed, goes back into the teeny box-like boot.

This has the traditional MINI lid that drops down, rather than lifting up, so getting luggage in and out could be awkward, but the new one has a secret weapon. It’s called Easy Load. A pair of levers inside the boot can be lifted to release part of the bodywork above the cavity, so allowing that portion to hinge upward and make loading easier. To close, all you do is push the levers back down.

The roof looks like an old-school, manually folding, job with metal framework bulging through the canvas. But although struts and joins are visible from inside, you cannot see any actual ironmongery. It fits well with no hint of leaks in wet weather or wind whistle while driving. Like most others, though, it isn’t really happy being open above about 110 km/h when wind noise and turbulence begin to interfere with conversation.

Being a thinly disguised BMW, much of what was fitted turned out to be optional extras. We confess to liking the John Cooper Works (JCW) package priced at R8600 that provides warmed leather sports seats with under-thigh extenders, a JCW leather-clad steering wheel that included R4300-worth of satellite controls that would otherwise have cost extra, sporty aluminium pedals, leather covering for the gearshift knob and bespoke sill plates.

Options we could take or leave included a heads-up display at R6800, an Excitement Pack (coloured mood lighting and MINI logo puddle lamps) priced at R3050, bonnet stripes at R1000 and a three-way driving mode selector at R3850.

Decent music reproduction is not negotiable, however, so we appreciated the Harman-Kardon upgrade (R7900) that supplied an eight-channel amplifier, 12 speakers and a stated total of 410 Watts of output. Disclaimer: Your scribe is a bit of a hi-fi buff, so he will object that the number given is completely meaningless. In purist circles, output is stated per channel and specified as being through eight ohms. Grumpiness aside though, it sounded good and clean with no discernible distortion.

Because it’s a plain Cooper, rather than Cooper S, this car is fitted with BMW’s three-cylinder 1500 cc engine rather than the 2.0-litre four cylinder unit that develops significantly more power (141 kW vs. 100 kW). Make no mistake, though, 100 kilowatts is more than enough to propel the car to 100 km/h in under nine seconds and on to a top speed of 206. The automatic box reacts quickly and smoothly to inputs and its six ratios are nicely spaced. We could almost forgive it for not being manual.

Briefly, the MINI Cooper is swift, tight, nippy and immensely enjoyable. Thanks to its German adoptive parent, it feels solid and well-built too. And, according to a recent British survey, cabriolets hold their resale values better than tin-tops do. We could get used to having one around – even on rainy days.

Test car from MINI SA press fleet


What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that every car reviewed is given my personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every test car goes through real world driving; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

I do my best to include relevant information like real life fuel economy or a close mathematical calculation, boot size or luggage space, whether the space is both usable and accessible, whether life-sized people can use the back seat (where that applies), basic specs of the vehicle and performance figures if they are published. In the case of clearly identified launch reports, fuel figures are of necessity the laboratory numbers provided with the release material. If I ever place an article that doesn't cover most things, it's probably because I have dealt with that vehicle at least once already, so you will be able to find what you want in another report under the same manufacturer's heading in the menu on the left.

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