We drove the new Mini Cooper S a few weeks back and were largely impressed, although we didn’t like the optional Sports suspension’s ride quality – “atrocious” was our exact description.
Mini’s considered response was to let us try a car without the Sports suspension, and it’s a revelation. It’s still a little on the firm side, but it’s now firm in the way a 175PS hot hatch should be, rather than too hard to live with on a daily basis.
A tiny 23.9ppm is nothing for a car with the credibility and performance of a Cooper S, and no matter how hard we tried (and we tried hard), we couldn’t get the trip computer to read below 30mpg.
Verdict: Practicality aside, it’s a fantastic fleet or driver proposition
