Is the Mini a Good Car?

In 2001 BMW brought out a new Mini that looked like the original Mini, which was brought out in 1959.  The original Mini was sold in England until 2000 as an Austin, but the 1959 design too unsafe and nowhere near modern enough for for the 21st century. The car BMW ended up with was amazing, it was small, fun to drive, fairly inexpensive, and quite safe. The Mini was a huge success, when it was brought out people could buy one and because it was so desirable they could sell it a year later for more than they paid for it new. The Mini was one of the first superminis to have an independent rear suspension and to get a 4 star crash test rating from the EuroNCAP. The Mini's handling and looks are the two reasons for its success. In Europe the base model Mini was called the Mini One, it had just 90hp, but that turned out to be plenty of power for the Mini's wonderful chassis to be fun and as an extra advantage the One was quite fuel efficient. The Mini One was also available as a diesel, but that had only 70hp, which was mostly useless. We got the Mini Cooper and Cooper S (Europe got all the versions of the Mini). The Cooper did the same thing here as the Mini One did in Europe, it was huge fun to drive, except it managed to be fuel efficient at the same time. The Cooper S was the best one of all, it had a supercharged 1.6L I4 that made 162hp (later versions had 168hp), which meant this was by far the most fun version, until they made 214hp John Cooper Works version. They even managed to make the convertible version just as much fun, which makes no sense at all when you consider that the over $60,000 BMW M3 convertible is terrible to drive compared with the coupe. Now there is an all new Mini, that looks the same, but isn't. The new one is just as fun to drive as before, but also adds some comfort and practicality to the package. It still has a back seat only suitable small dogs and children with no legs and the trunk is still too small for a suitcase. The new car's 1.6 liter in line 4 comes from Peugeot and is more powerful. The Cooper engine has 120hp, that engine is found in the Peugeot 207 and 308. The Cooper S has a turbocharged version of that engine the 1.6L engine that makes 175hp, meaning the new car is even faster and slightly more fun to drive than the old new Mini Cooper S and there is a new JCW version that has 208hp, which is a lot in such a small car. Again Europe gets a Mini One, but the new car has 95hp and some people think the Mini One is the most fun to drive of them all. The best version now is probably the new Cooper D. It has 110hp, which is more than enough to make the Mini very fun to drive. It also manages to get 53mpg combined, partly because of the stop/start system that turns off the engine at stop lights, but you can turn the feature off if it gets annoying. Mini has messed up with the pointless Clubman. I think a longer more practical Mini is silly, because the Mini will always be small, but a larger one still won't work as somebody's only car. The Clubman also looks stupid, still has a small back seat, and isn't as fast as the normal car. There will be a new Mini convertible and that should be very good. The other thing the new Mini does well is crash, it got a 5 star crash test rating from the EuroNCAP, but stability control is easy to get, so it's less likely to crash as well. This is a truly great car.