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Introduction
Mini Cooper – 2007 Review: Life with a party animal can be fun. There’s constant excitement, things to do, places to go, and always with a kickin’ soundtrack. For some people, it’s the epitome of living the dream. Yet sometimes even die-hard animals get on your nerves, no matter how fun they are. That’s the case with the 2007 Mini Cooper. It brandishes fun like a club, from its clown-car styling inside and out to its frisky driving manners. It wears thin in the daily commute though, and makes us wonder if maybe living with the volume turned up to 11 isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
What We Drove
Our 2007 Mini Cooper featured the naturally aspirated 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine and six-speed manual transmission. The base $18,700 price included air conditioning, alloy wheels, front, side and curtain airbags, anti-lock brakes and traction control. Options on our car included $1,500 leather seats, a $1,400 convenience package with a universal garage door opener, auto dimming rearview mirror and Bluetooth mobile phone, and a $1,400 premium package with multifunction steering wheel, dual-pane sunroof and automatic climate control. Throw in the $1,400 sport and $300 cold weather packages with the $200 chrome and $200 piano black interior trim and $550 audio system and you’re looking at $25,650 of Mini.
Performance
The engine in the standard Mini produces only 118 horsepower from its 1.6-liters of displacement. Even with the six-speed transmission’s short ratios and quick action, the Mini is far from fast. Accelerating at full throttle produces more exciting noise than forward thrust, and we found ourselves winding the engine out to redline just to keep up with traffic. That’s likely why we only got 27.3 mpg, well below the Mini’s 32 mpg city rating. Acceleration is on par with other economy-minded cars, but pales next to other cars with this Mini’s as-equipped price tag.
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