Mini Convertible Cooper S (2009) CAR review

All style and no substance? You could be forgiven for thinking so, but BMW values its reputation for dynamic excellence very highly, and the Mini has much to live up to. So don’t be too surprised to hear how good the Cooper S Convertible is, both as a driver’s car and as an increasingly neatly packaged piece of niche marketing.

The Mini Convertible? Neatly packaged? Haven’t heard that said about any new generation Mini.

Okay, so students of Issigonis won’t be tearing up their dissertations, but the way the canvas hood works is really quite neat, plus the all-new single-piece rollbar stays hidden behind the rear seats until needed, creating a much cleaner look and better rear visibility, and allowing the roof to exactly ape the tin-top’s shape, thus not looking even slightly crap.

It’s a 15-second job to retract the roof into the boot, and the boot space you’re left with is marginally improved over the previous car (by five litres, to 125 litres with the roof open and 175 with it closed). Admittedly the canvas stacks itself into a rather cumbersome looking pile that sticks up so proudly it could almost be taken for a rear spoiler, but it makes for a kind of ‘roadster’ look. Which is cool.

Fine, but how does it go?

The Cooper S packs the familiar turbocharged 1.6-litre engine, with 175bhp and 177lb ft of torque, which we know is a gutsy performer, and it doesn’t disappoint here. There’s loads of fun to be had wringing out the urge via the snicky six-speed manual box, yet the engine never feels stretched thanks to so much of its twist action being so available low down the rev band.

The only thing we’ve lost is a fraction of the character we once enjoyed – even with the top down there’s not much reward for tunnel hooligans. Unless you blip it hard.

But the engine’s improved nature is worth that loss of character, right?

Right. In environmental terms it makes the old lump look like a well-alight Ukranian paint factory. Mpg on the Cooper S is up 23 percent (from 34 to 44.1), while the increasingly deal-breaking CO2 headline plummets from 199g/km to 153. Upping the enviro-ante even further is automatic stop-start, brake energy regeneration and a change-up indicator, although the latter is too fussy by half, having you shuffling cogs like a card shark in an unwinnable quest for planet-pleasing rpm.

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