Mini Cooper S 2007 Review

Nothing so neatly sums up the drab conformity of the industrial age as Henry Ford's grim quip about his Model T: “Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it's black.”

No single mode of affordable personal mobility offers such a sharp riposte as the R56 Mini range.

So bewilderingly varied are the number of exterior and interior trim combinations of the second-generation New Mini (or the new New Mini, if you must), you'd need Einstein or Tesla to make sense of it.

The Mini people posit a figure of 15,000,000,000,000,000 — and that's before you start tooling about under the hood with added (additional added?) extras such as the John Cooper Works kit.

I copied this number (at least that's what I assume it is) into a notepad while being shown through the Mini plant at Oxford last year. From time to time, I take it out and just sort of stare at it.

Yet, on the evidence of the Mini Cooper S now in our hands, it may even be true.

This so-called Exclusive model is an early-build show car with 17 optional features, thrusting the base $39,000 asking price to $55,255.

Before you delve into this list — which includes a glass roof and joystick-operated satnav — you'll need to choose exterior and interior colour and trim.

These in themselves comprise a combination of choices barely graspable. Ours just happens to be of a fairly conventional silver hue — sans racing stripes or Union Jacks — with deep tan leather trim and accents.

Which is nice, if only because someone with greater powers of clarity than us has already made the tough decisions, thus saving months of poring over catalogues or online configurators in agonised indecision. It's not so much a burden of choice as a life-sapping crush.

Yet the great majority of Mini punters opt for bespokedness of some degree, ensuring almost every Mini you see will have an individuality as distinct as DNA.

When the buyer finally gets around to inserting the orb-shaped “key” in the dash and pressing the starter button, they should come to appreciate a drive that's a marginal, but marked, improvement over the previous model.

That's down almost entirely to the direct-injection, 1.6-litre four with twin-scroll turbocharger. With a maximum 128kW, this develops a barely discernible 3kW more than the previous supercharged unit, but packs a much more immediately usable 240Nm.

An increase of 20Nm over the Gen One, this can be shoved up to 260Nm via the overboost function, enhancing an already bulging torque curve that kicks in at 1600rpm and stays on line until five grand.

As though to prove Mini buyers are interested in blowers other than those wielded by their hair stylists, some have touchingly, if unrealistically, demanded the restoration of the supercharger. Well may they whine, because the new engine doesn't.

The official 0-100km/h sprint figure is 7.1 seconds, though in something so compact — less than 3m long and barely 1.1 tonnes — the rush is more visceral than numbers convey.

When it comes to getting around corners slickly, you'd expect something a bit special — and the Cooper S (almost) delivers.

A turn-in that's sabre-sharp is slightly denuded by the electro-mechanical steering's rather remote feel, though in most circumstances it serves perfectly well.

Run-flat tyres can cause rollerskate skittering where less rigid sidewalls won't, but the Coop's suspension set-up, seemingly more compliant than before, is well up to most dynamic demands.

A six-speed manual, geared slightly too tall in BMW fashion, is the only transmission choice. Accessed easily from an upright, well-supported driving position, it also resembles the parent company's sticks in its ease of action.

A more pronounced gate between reverse and first wouldn't hurt. It could conceivably prevent a bit of pain.

Things such as these remind you that the Mini is essentially a compact, front-wheel-drive BMW. Except that unlike the utterly ubiquitous conformism of a silver 1 Series, a bespoke Mini will shout “Me!”

Fast facts

Mini Cooper S

On sale: Now

Price: From $39,000 plus endless options

Body: Hatch

Engine: 1.6-litre, four-cylinder turbo petrol, 128kW, 240-260Nm

Transmission: Six-speed manual, front-wheel drive

Performance: 0-100km/h in 7.1 seconds (claim)

Fuel: 6.9 litres per 100km (combined claim)

Safety: Includes ABS, Brake Assist, Cornering Brake Control, stability control plus traction, brake assist, six airbags