New MINI Cooper Review
Almost fifty years ago saw the launch of a car that would change the face of rallying, a car that had never been considered as a performance car. That car was called the Mini Cooper.
Forty years after the first Mini Cooper, BMW re launched this famous marque and the MINI adventure has not stopped since, 2007 has seen the launch of the new face lifted Cooper, although if you were going by sales figures you'd wonder why BMW bothered, with the old Cooper seeming as popular as ever. The new Cooper however has made one giant leap with the introduction of an oil burning turbo diesel. A new BMW - Peugeot developed petrol engine (the same as in the Peugeot 207) replaces the previous Brazilian built unit. The petrol Cooper develops 120 bhp and can accelerate from 0 - 62 mph, top speed for the petrol Cooper is 126 mph. With a top speed of 121 mph, the 107 bhp developed by the diesel unit may not seem quite so impressive and indeed from 0 - 62 mph the oil burner is a second slower, the torque with the diesel unit is far more impressive than its petrol counterpart and the D is actually two seconds faster when accelerating through from fifty to seventy five miles per hour.
Although extremely difficult to spot, the new Cooper shares none of the body panels of the 2001 MINI, that aside, this new generation still has all the attributes of a MINI. Fit and finish is everything you would expect from a BMW owned company, unfortunately so are prices and it's quite easy to add optional extra's and push the price of the car up towards the twenty grand mark, a small car for a large lump of cash you might think, take a look at the sales figures and residual values though, and you soon realise this does not seem to put too many buyer's off.
Like the looks of the MINI Cooper why not check out the Ford Ka or the VW Beetle.
Finance your new MINI Cooper on a PCP car loan work out your monthly payments using our Car Finance Payment Calculator.