After all, every time I've had a MINI is in my possession I've made an effort to drive it as much as possible. My efforts paid off when I finished the week having put a total of 565 kilometers on the odometer (not as much as during my 2003 Cooper S test week, but nevertheless a good figure). And I bring up fuel economy because all my 500 plus kilometers came from one, I repeat, one tank of gas (50-liter fuel capacity) which ended up costing $31.00 to refill. That was music to my ears, and money in the wallet.
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| After a week and 500 plus kilometers, I was running on a single tank of gas. (Photo: Alexandra Straub, Canadian Auto Press) |
So where did I drive to achieve such figures? Well, nowhere special other than Whistler. Like most of my weeklong tests, I kept busy driving to and from university, running errands, and just plain driving for the heck of it. Can you blame me? But not all cars inspire me to drive for the fun of it. After a long day of working I find it relaxing to wind down with an evening drive into the sunset. The MINI is the ideal therapy, with my favorite music playing on the better than average audio system, my hair dancing from the wind funneled through the standard power windows, and my back enjoying the comfort of the leatherette bucket seats.
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| The Classic MINI is equipped with a 1.6-liter, 4 cylinder, 16-valve, SOHC engine, producing 115-hp. (Photo: Alexandra Straub, Canadian Auto Press) |
The Cooper Classic shares the same engine with the Cooper; a 1.6-liter, 4 cylinder, 16-valve, SOHC unit producing 115 horsepower at 6,000 rpm and 110 lb-ft of torque at 4,500 rpm. Even though the Classic is not laced with a supercharger like the S, it still romps around town with decent acceleration for its (engine) size; 0 to 100 km/h in 9.2 seconds. The 0 to 100 km/h time in the standard 5-speed manual transmission with overdrive, the one I had during my test week, shaves off 1.2 seconds in comparison to the optional automatic engine. This is just another reason why I prefer manual transmissions to automatic ones; I get more bounce to the ounce!
