Mini Cooper News

High performance versions of the Mini Cooper are being recalled worldwide to fix an engine problem that could potentially start a fire.More than 235,000 of the turbocharged Cooper S models built between 2006 and last year are being recalled worldwide to remedy a secondary water pump fitted to cool down the turbocharger.The company has global reports of just over 80 water pump failures and four fires as a result, but BMW Australia and local authorities have deemed the program here to be a technical service campaign,Mini Australia spokesman Piers Scott says just over 3700 Cooper S (of which one may have experienced the smoldering engine bay issue) and John Cooper Works vehicles built between 2006 and 2011 are effected in Australia."This was deemed to be a technical campaign, in-line with similar campaigns conducted in the past," he said.Mr Scott said the use of the term `recall' overseas to describe the issue."It is the Department of Infrastructure and Transport that we liaise with locally and they would advise us if it were to be a safety Recall.""There is no less urgency under a technical campaign - replacement parts are now in the country and Mini Australia has already begun contacting affected customers," he said.The worldwide recall of 235,000 cars includes 29,868 in the UK and 89,000 in the US and involves replacing the water pump free of charge.The company head office said that the turbocharged engines are fitted with an additional water pump to remove residual heat from the turbocharger after the engine was switched off."Under high operating temperatures an electro-migration can occur at the circuit board installed in the additional water pump," it said."This can lead to a failure of the additional water pump or smoldering and even a fire cannot be excluded."More than 200,000 Minis are built each year at the company's Oxford plant, where production started in 2001and recently passed two million vehicles built - the car is exported to more than 90 countries.The turbocharged engine is shared with Citroen and Peugeot, but both French companies said there engines employed different electrical systems.

That's one possible story reflected in a go-faster Mini lapping at the Nurburgring with the usual JCW upgrades to the body, engine and suspension. Carparazzi believes it could be a Challenge Edition, based on the lowered suspension, changes to the nose and the centre-mounted dual exhaust system.

The Pinocchio nose on this prototype is proof that the next makeover of the Mini is a complete change for the British baby. The camouflaged Cooper is way longer from the windscreen to the bumper and it's not just for pedestrian protection.Carparazzi believes the change points to a bigger car with more cabin space, while Mini is also expected to ditch the car's centre-mounted speedo. The all-new Mini should be around in 2013 but is unlikely in Australia until early the following year, perhaps even with a three-cylinder TwinPower engine in the base model.

Small cars are much bigger than they were 40 years ago, with nothing demonstrating that better than the MINI Cooper in 2001. Further bulking up the brand, the four-door MINI Countryman takes on the Compact SUV market, for those who want the coolness of a Cooper, without the size compromise.Enter the Rocketman Concept. Shaving 20 centimetres off the modern MINI Cooper, the Rocketman edges the brand little closer in size to the classic Mini, without sacrificing the technology we’ve come to expect.Described as a 3+1, the 3-door concept car can be setup in two, three or four seater configurations, and uses double-hinged front doors to reduce the space needed to open them fully. The rear hatch is split, with a large panel opening upwards, and a drawer style arrangement that slides out at the bottom.Clearly designed with the youth market in mind, a lot of glass above the door line promotes an airy feel, and technology abounds with 3D graphics adorning the various displays.

So the 2011 Mini Cooper S facelift photographed by Carparazzi in Europe is essentially … more of the same.There are some small changes in terms of a revised air intake and it’s likely there could still be a surprise under that bumper camouflage.  Some attention has also been paid to the light clusters, with the rear set now sporting LEDs.However, with the increasing pressure of emissions regulations, the Mini is also likely to have some upgraded engine technology aimed at reducing CO2 while improving outputs.Insiders are tipping that a variable-valve system will be added to the current 128kW/240Nm turbocharged 1.6-litre petrol engine, while the naturally aspirated 88kW/160Nm version will also be tweaked – although there are no hints of how much it will increase the outputs of either.

Was it "Big Bopper" - the '79 XB Falcon from Mad Max, or Steve McQueen's '68 Mustang GT in Bullitt. Or could it be the '64 Aston Martin DB5 driven by Bond in Goldfinger. How about the Mini Coopers of 1969 in the Italian Job? Or, does the '77 Pontiac Trans Am from Smokey and The Bandit top your list?Take our poll below to tell us what you think, or leave a comment if your top pick is not listed.But if the Oscars gave out awards to cars instead of stars, Audi would probably get the most nominations. During the past few years, Audis have featured in all the Transporter movies, Ronin, I Robot, Mission Impossible 2, About a Boy, Legally Blonde 2, Hitman, The Matrix 2, Iron Man and now its sequel.In the first Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr plays Tony Stark (a.k.a 'Iron Man'). His workshop houses a 1932 Ford Flathead roadster, a 1967 Shelby Cobra, a Saleen S7, a prototype Tesla Roadster and a 2008 Audi R8.Supporting roles were played by the S5 sports sedan driven by American secret service agents and a Q7 SUV which is literally held up by Iron Man, who saves the family inside from the enemy. For the Australian premiere, Downey Jr arrived in a silver R8. In Iron Man 2 he drives an Audi R8 Spyder and his secretary, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), drives an A8 TDI.Audi Australia corporate communications general manager Anna Burgdorf could not confirm whether any payment was made for the placement. However, she could confirm that the super-sport R8 V10 Spyder will arrive here towards the end of the year.The R8 Spyder 5.2 FSI quattro features a lightweight-cloth top that opens automatically in about 19 seconds. Its V10 engine produces 386kW of power and launches the open-top two-seater to 100km/h in 4.1 seconds on its way to a top speed of 313km/h.Product placement of cars is not new to the sliver screen. Most critics believe it started with Bond films, notably the Aston Martin DB5 in Goldfinger, in 1964. Aston returned in 1965 for Thunderball and was replaced by the DBS for 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service.Other companies then got into the act of pushing their vehicles on to the Bond screen with the highlights being the amphibious Lotus Esprit in The Spy Who Loved Me and the launch of the BMW Z3 Roadster in GoldenEye. Even a pre-production Aston Martin DBS scored a role in Casino Royale, and scored a Guinness record for "the most cannon rolls in a car at the same time" - seven - for its very brief appearance.Iron Man 2 begins screening in Australia on April 29.

The German prestige brand has always vowed they’d never venture into the front-wheel drive field. But reports overnight from Europe quote BMW boss Norbert Reithofer confirming that a small BMW will be built on the front-wheel drive Mini Cooper platform."There will be front-wheel drive BMWs in the smaller vehicle classes in the future,” Reithofer stated at the carmaker’s annual shareholder and financial meeting in Munich yesterday.“This segment is expected to grow further. And we will take advantage of this opportunity,” Reithofer said. “We are exploring the possibility of developing a joint architecture for the front and four-wheel drive systems of these cars.  We all know that the cost structure in the small car segment is different from that of the larger model classes. We intend to grow profitably in this segment as well.“Because there is one element that applies to the entire process chain: We will increasingly apply modular manufacturing kits to various models and brands. This approach enables us to cut costs further – without compromising on top quality.”The mini BMWs – as opposed to BMW Minis - that result from this strategy are likely to be strong contenders for supremacy in the sprouting luxury subcompact segment.  And they would improve the badge’s average fuel economy and emissions – which would boost their ability to comply with coming legislation not only in Europe but in the huge US market.But the jury will be out for a while on what it might mean to the brand value after years of trumpeting the perceived dynamic superiority of rear-wheel drive.  However in a world that is seeing Aston Martin re-badge a tiny Toyota, it seems the old-school rules and boundaries may be losing relevance.A new generation of young buyers – possibly looking for a cheaper doorway into a prestige brand – will probably care more about the badge on the front of the car than about which set of wheels is driving it.And some of those could well be here, with BMW Australia saying they would definitely look at importing it.  “We’ll consider it in our planning once it’s available,” BMW spokesman Tim James says.  “But at this stage we haven’t got any advice on the timing.”James agrees the subcompacts would slip in well underneath the current 1 Series, but says there is little concern about cannibalisation of sales.   “BMW would have conducted thorough research and have obviously identified a market,” James says.  “So for them to proceed and go in this direction means they think there would be only minimal risk of cannibalisation.”And despite BMW often – and strongly – stating that rear-wheel drive is the mark of true driving dynamics (most publicly when a former Australian boss declared Audi was not a competitor because they had no rear-drive cars) James says the front-wheel news is unlikely to dilute the brand image.“At BMW, everything they do, they always engineer to the highest standards,” James says.  “They won’t bring anything to market that isn’t a true BMW – that isn’t the ultimate driving machine in its segment.“It won’t come with a negative connotation. And we do consider Audi a competitor in our market – whether it’s their front-wheel or all-wheel drive cars, Audi’s in the mix.”

Mini designer Alec Issigonis and performance tweaker John Cooper had a brain explosion in 1964 and developed a model with twin motors. Cooper crashed it, spent eight months in hospital and the idea was officially shelved. It hasn't stopped many backyard mechanics from having a go ever since, including Brisbane dentist Bill Westerman."Five years ago I was drinking beer with my friend Fred Sayers and we both decided to build one," he says in his garage littered with Mini engines in various states of rebuild. "Right from the word go — when the hangover cleared — we got stuck right into it."His 1964 Mini Cooper S with a "worn-out" 1293cc engine in the front and another in the back is called "Nuts". "Because you have to be nuts to drive it and it's better with two," says Westerman with a cheeky grin."I don't know what I paid for this one. It came from a shell. I had a shed load of Minis at the time. It's a sickness, you know."The graduate dentist began learning his mechanical skills from his first car which was a composite Series II Land Rover he made from two he bought at auction. His love of Minis started with his second purchase in 1969 when he bought a new Cooper S for $2500 and headed off to work in outback Waikerie, South Australia."I realised fairly quickly that what you really need in the outback is a V8, so I bought an XY Falcon ute," he says. "It went through a set of tyres every 6000 miles (9656km), a set of shocks every three months and universal joints at least once a year over those corrugated roads."His next car was a modified VB Commodore V8 wagon donated to the young dentist by Holden. He had it about five years before returning to Brisbane, more study at the University of Queensland and the start of his amateur career racing Minis from 1986 to today."The aim was to race all the circuits in Australia and I've just about done that except for Perth and Darwin," he says. "I've had a lot of fun. Racing has been very good to me. I've always been in the middle of the pack because I didn't spend enough money on the race car to win."His efforts to get more power out of a Mini and get further to the front of the pack led him down the ignominious Issigonis path of a twin-engined model. "We were worried after the first drive as it was an extremely difficult beast to keep on the road," he says. "There has to be co-ordination between the two motors. The gearing is the same and all the internals in the engine are the same, but we set the front so it was revving slightly harder so there is a bit of a pull factor."The revelation that kept the beast on the road came from an article in a 1960s Sportscar World magazine about the Formula One Ferguson all-wheel-drive race car. "We got a lot of hints from that; you need an overdrive diff on the front and back," he says. "We put one in the front and it made a bit of a difference and then we put one in the back and all of a sudden it goes. The diff takes up the front-to-back bias. It used to crab before that."The other major problem was the suspension. "Minis usually understeer, but this one was really taily at the start, not because of the weight in the rear but the front suspension we put in the rear. The problem was the back castor ... it had too much toe-in and we had to remove it. Instead of a steering box and steering geometry we made it into a straight-ahead suspension. Now I can drive it over all the ripple strips and still maintain control of the car. We have handling reasonable so now we are after more horsepower."Two more powerful engines in various stages of rebuild are sitting on the floor of his garage waiting to be thrown into the "Nuts" car. "I have the theoretical knowledge of mechanics to build an engine but Fred has the practical knowledge to make it work," he says. "It's been an interesting engineering exercise."Unfortunately, the car won't be ready in time for the second annual Cootha Classic hillclimb which Westerman organises for the Historic Racing Car Club of Queensland. "Maybe next year," he says.The Cootha Classic will be held on May 29-30 featuring more than 250 cars and about 50 motorcycles from the 1920s to today in timed sprints around a 1450m track up and down Sir Samuel Griffith Drive with seven corners and chicanes.Racing starts at 8.30am. Entry is $20 a day, $15 for concession, $30 for a two-day pass and $5 for parking in the J.C. Slaughter Falls carpark.Visit: www.visitbrisbane.com.au.

Back in 1999, the only diesel-powered vehicles on the Australian market were sports utility vehicles, light commercials and trucks.

It is the Ford Fiesta ECOnetic, which re-set the economy benchmark this year at just 3.7L/100km - that is 76.3 miles-per-gallon in pre-decimal currency - and also produces just 98 grams of carbon for