The MINI Tries to be Fun, Yet Frugal. Can it pull it off?

We never quite got the MINI One D. As you can see in our report from the original launch, so the idea of the historic, racing pedigree name of Cooper being placed next to the now familiar MINI “D” logo did leave us with some doubts when rumours first began of this unholy matrimony.

Turns out though we really need not have worried, at least, not that much.

The first thing that impressed us about the original MINI One D was the noise. Or rather, the lack of noise. This, however was not the case with the new Cooper D. In fact if one criticism could be leveled at the new car it’s that the refinement we found with the original, less gutsy One D doesn’t seem quite as good.

That really though was the only minor gripe we could find with the new engine, in fact it was really our only gripe with the car full stop. We were lucky enough to be able to drive both the new Cooper D and MINI One on the launch event unaccompanied. This is always a good thing from our point of view (less the map reading difficulties), but even more so this time around as it allowed the opportunity to break away from the predefined test route and onto familiar roads and lanes around Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

This was important to us, as we’d had problems with two MINI Cooper S on some of our favoured driving routes, and this was our first real chance to throw a MINI around some bends and drive some rough uneven roads. You know, have some good old fashioned fun behind the wheels of a MINI Cooper.

Considering the chosen route, and our driving style on it, the Cooper D returned an impressive consumption figure of a tad under 37 miles to the gallon. Given that the same sort of driving style in a Cooper S would return possibly 10 or more less miles to the gallon shows how frugal this new Diesel engine can be, even when you’re playing high up in the rev range (high for this engine is around 4.5k rpm) and enjoying some challenging twisties.

While the first impression as we crawled around a small section of the Oxford ring road was that of a fairly noisy, rattly engine, once on the open roads the intrusion of typical diesel noises into the cabin was more than acceptable. When you push hard it growls and grumbles a little at you, and as is typical with diesels you run out of revs before you really wish you had, but the performance is more than acceptable.

The Cooper D has basically the same torque figure as the MINI Cooper S, but there’s no way this car could have been branded something like the Cooper S D. Not only would that look and sound ridiculous, the performance just isn’t there. This isn’t a stonking 2 litre plus diesel unit hurtling a little car around at a rate of knots, but it is very usable, well matched to the chassis and gearbox, and it’s always willing to pull you along, up hill, round the twisties, through town, or on the open road it’s equally at home.

If given the choice of the Cooper or the Cooper D, we’d go for the D. Despite a 0-62 time nearly a second down on the Cooper (9.9 versus 9 second), the overall package is excellent, even with the price premium. MINI expects potential punters such as us to be in the minority though. MINI UK predicts around 5% of total MINI sales will be of the Diesel variant, but with emissions being below 120g/km C02 putting the car inside the current VED tax band “b”, and offering attractive incentives for private company buyers, this could well fill a niche market that the One D didn’t quite satisfy. And this, in turn, could make the Cooper D a more attractive buying proposition, as if demand is higher than expected (for example the London congestion charge may in future not apply to cars below 120 g/km C02, potentially saving regular commuters a tidy sum) Plant Oxford could well struggle to increase supply in any case, which could in turn lead to very good residual values.

In all honesty, we’re not huge diesel fans, and the One D did leave us rather cold. It was frugal, it was quiet (for a Diesel), but it lacked gusto and verve and didn’t have the appeal that even the MINI One offered in first generation guise. The Cooper D however is an altogether different kettle of fish. We think MINI may have a bit of a surprise winner on their hands.

Now you’ve seen what our first impressions of the Cooper D are, you can salivate over photos of the MINI Cooper D in our MINI Cooper Diesel Gallery, and join the debate in our MINI Cooper Diesel forum.