[mike58]

Had a brief fling in a cooper S w/ chilli pack on Sat and as a Cooper owner it was sad to report that it is in all ways superior, perhaps the most surprising revelation was that the ride qual on 17s w/ SPS was good, as I had expected a back breaking ride.
The good DocT ( Mini2 memb) and I were trusted with the car for 40 min or so courtesy of Fairbairn Glasgow ( cheers Duncan) and a fairly extensive and unsympathetic test took place followed immed by a back to back with my Cooper.

Accel good but can be caught "off boost"

Handling turn in excell feels wondrously tail happy, much less understeer when pushed hard at slow speeds.I thought my Cooper was sharp but this car was needle sharp

Gear/Clutch a bit notchy and grabby but it was a brand new car


Build qual feels more BMW than my early build Cooper.

In summary If and only IF I could afford the price to change and the fuel bills I would order now, but I know I could not drive this car at any less than the 8-10/10s that I already subject my poor Cooper to so it could be an expensive marriage.

Mike

[DocT]

Mike...had my "booked"test drive today in the same car, what amazed me is the same test track (Stewarton Road) in the ****ing rain and it didn't put a foot wrong, it just gripped and gripped and gripped, that really blew me away as I was expecting the slippery rain soaked roads to significantly reduce its amazing ability to appear on rails, even the well known off-camber double bend!

Mind you there was one thing gripping better that run....penny onto the seat edges!!

Yup, thats the beastie for me F..F...F....FUN with a capital F

just counting the days now.

go-on mike...you know you want one!!

PS for all forum members, Mike is a top driver and knows what he's talking about...I'm mearly an amateur in his company!!