As Sir Kenneth Branagh has said to me on many occasions: “Col, you can’t beat a bit of theatre in a car.” As we all know, there are few bad cars on sale now when it comes to mechanics, so styling is crucially important.
Not just styling, but clever and interesting features that make a car a little bit more special.
Few affordable family cars are as special as the current Mini. It’s just full of interesting details, from its larger circular infotainment screen in the centre of its dashboard to the wonderful switches that look as though they’ve been removed from a Lancaster bomber. Gimmicky perhaps, but it works for me.
As it must do for the many thousands of people who own and love the modern Mini.
We’re testing the Mini Cooper S five-door Resolute Edition.
Mini (and even before BMW took over) is famous for launching special editions but this one is rather cool. The firm is also making a special version of the Countryman called Untamed and another of the Clubman called Untold.
Mini is suffering as much from supply problems as most other car makers – so at the moment the Clubman Untold is the Clubman Onhold. Also for supply reasons you can only get the five-door Resolute with an automatic gearbox. Our car has a manual and Mini says that transmission will be available again soon. Mechanically, the Resolute Edition is straight Cooper S and to refresh your memory that means a 1,499cc three-cylinder turbocharged engine producing 176bhp.
Enough poke for 0-62mph in 8.3sec and a top speed of 146mph. This puts the car into the ‘warm hatch’ category and also makes it slower to 62mph than a lot of unsexy EVs.
But they don’t have an interesting three-cylinder engine note and a slick six-speed gearbox. Anyway, on the road the Cooper S feels quicker than its vital statistics suggest.
Also, all Minis handle fantastically well. Particularly in fast corners through which they feel very stable and secure.
Summing up, the Cooper S is as fast as you need a car to be on the public road these days. Now to the special edition bit of the car or rather its Resoluteness. First off there’s the paint. The hue is called Rebel Green and usually it’s only available on the hot John Cooper Works models. It looks terrific combined with the white roof and door mirror cappings.
Next there’s a bronze finish for the radiator grille, headlamp surrounds, rear lamps and door handles.
It looks really good and much classier than chrome.
The bonnet gets bronze stripes and Resolute lettering. It’s all very tasteful and I can’t remember a special edition that looks as good as this Mini. Inside there’s retro cloth upholstery which also looks great. On the dashboard there’s gold pinstriping that’s also nicely done.
The whole Resolute treatment works really well and the designers responsible for it should be given Friday afternoon off. When the Clubman Untold arrives I hope it will be as well done as the Resolute because the Clubman, with its rear barn doors, is my favourite Mini body style.
I like it as much as I dislike the oversized Countryman. The Cooper S comes with three driving modes selectable via one of the toggle switches. Usually I don’t do much mode fiddling in cars (apart from having a go in the interests of thorough road testing) but it’s quite fun in the Mini because as you go into Sport mode an image of the car and a race circuit’s red and white rumble strip pops up.
The car’s ride is quite firm but never annoying. Besides, you expect a firm ride when you go for the sporty model. There are few cars costing £25,601 that have so much kerb appeal or that are so enjoyable to drive.
The facts
Mini Cooper S Resolute five-door hatchback
Price: £25,601
Engine: 1.5-litre three-cylinder, 176bhp
0-62mph: 8.3sec
Fuel consumption: 42.8-47.9mpg
Co2: 136-141g/km
