More than a few readers have sent messages questioning what, exactly, I value in an automobile. These inquiries have often included helpful suggestions concerning the kind of flying leap I can take and where.
Let me explain. What I value in a car is personality. What I value is character. I value a car that makes me daydream about driving, about romancing the road for hours on end, a white-line idyll without purpose or destination. All I ask is a small ship and a star to steer her by.
If you are searching for causes of dysfunction in America's love affair with the automobile, the place to start is the focus group flatness that defines most cars today, an enervating perfection that is the product of automakers chasing, in my view, the wrong rabbit.
Almost by definition, character comprises great strengths and certain winning flaws -- does anybody remember Edmund Burke?
The BMW-built 2004 Mini Cooper is not a perfect automobile. Let us just take a moment to let that understatement reverberate: The back seat is the automotive equivalent of a spider hole in Tikrit. The ride is rough enough to disqualify you from future organ donations. Compared with the amniotic hush of a Lexus LS 430 or Volkswagen Phaeton, the Mini's warbling, static-filled ambience sounds as if it was recorded in Sam Phillips' Sun Records studio.
But the Mini -- especially the John Cooper Works edition I drove recently -- is a righteous piece, a snubbed-down, amped-up, hot rod Hobbit that turns the most galling stop-and-go errand into an occasion for joyous gear-jamming and games of Diss the SUV. I defy you not to love this car.
And in Los Angeles -- ohmigod -- the car flat-out dogs traffic. With 200 supercharged horsepower on tap, the JCW edition makes a hole in freeway traffic like a satchel charge, nicking around bigger cars and squeezing into openings stingy drivers didn't know they had left.
With its 97.1-inch wheelbase, 143.9-inch overall length and turning radius of a mere 34.2 feet, the Mini is brought to you by the letter U, as in U-turn. See a parking place on the other side of the street? You are on it like Snoop on a fatty.
A little history is in order. The original Mini was designed by Sir Alec Issigonis in response to the Suez oil crisis of the late 1950s, and its novel configuration -- a transverse-engine, front-wheel drive, four-seat two-door -- created the perfect city car for Europe's narrow streets and sidewalk parking: cheap, maneuverable, Swiss Army knife versatile.
The car, built wearing the Austin and Morris badges, became a cultural icon as much as the VW Beetle. Issigonis was knighted for his efforts. It starred in one of the great caper films of the 1960s, "The Italian Job," starring Michael Caine and one thoroughly mortified-looking Noel Coward. Mike Myers borrowed the Austin name for his paisley satyr Austin Powers.
(Obiter dictum, the 2002 remake of "The Italian Job," featuring the new Minis running the aqueducts in Los Angeles, is a superb piece of glossy, drossy, car-centric filmmaking.)
The trouble with the original 37-horsepower Mini was that it was slower than Christmas. To the rescue came John Cooper, the famed race engineer, whose shop -- or "works" -- banged together what became known as the Mini Cooper, with 65 horses. The car promptly went out and won the Monte Carlo Rally.
Likewise with the new car, the high-performance version of the Mini Cooper S is the product of the John Cooper Works shop. (John has gone on to the great paddock in the sky, but his son Mike carries on.) The base Mini Cooper is powered by a naturally aspirated 1.6-liter engine (a joint DaimlerChrysler-BMW unit built in Brazil) that puts out a noodle-armed 115 horsepower. The Cooper S supercharges the engine, raising the output to 163 horses, and pairs it with a six-speed manual transmission, traction control, sport suspension, hood snorkel and integrated rear spoiler.
The John Cooper Works package -- a bolt-on engine modification kit available through Mini dealers -- shoves a lot more air down the 1.6-liter gullet; using a bigger supercharger, a freer-breathing cylinder head and exhaust system; and a reprogrammed computer chip to control it all as the horsepower is nudged up to 200.
Perfect? Ah, no. To get 200 horses out of a 1.6-liter engine, you will inevitably leave some refinement and tractability on the table. Mini elected not to change the clutch, so when you take off in first gear, the engine inevitably bogs as the clutch catches. A heavier clutch would be welcome. A smooth takeoff requires a lot of clutch slipping. Drop the clutch and big things happen. Zero to 60 mph goes by in a crisp 6.3 seconds, and should you want to risk the ire of park rangers in Death Valley, top speed is 130 mph.
