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| | On the road A Mini for the summer: Mini Cooper S convertible 170 hp 6-speed manual By Georges Rouzeau Elected most feminine car of 2005, the Mini Cooper convertible is nevertheless a man's car giving you genuine driving sensations. With the arrival of summer, this convertible is certainly heading for success.  A six-month waiting list! You really do need patience to buy a Mini Cooper S convertible: the order books are packed full. To such an extent that stars and VIPs are pestering BMW's switchboard in the hope of obtaining preferential treatment. This 'luxury go-kart' is particularly approved by women who like driving with their hair blowing in the wind on coming out of the hip hairdresser's Donato.  At ViaMichelin, a man test drove it. And couldn't get enough: driving in the open air in this super-charged easy-to-handle little bomb brings back the pleasure of driving. So don't forget, the Mini is also a bloke's car, a competition city slicker with a cool, love-at-first-sight aspect that will do your virile ego good. It is said that love is blind to faults in the beloved, but I found a few. None however are damning. The Mini is a compact sexy car devoted to driving pleasure in cities and country alike.  Let's begin with the handles: they definitely need a firm squeeze to open the doors even if you don't have to yank them. And then the doors tend to close on their own because of their very weight. With safety uppermost in mind, everything has been designed to prevent impact, especially on lateral collisions: strengthened floor and substructure, additional cross beams and increased steel thickness at sensitive places. So the whole Mini suffers somewhat from midrift bulge, weighing in at 1250 kg.  Of course, inside, the storage spaces are as discreet as tiny - but how charming! From the sporty pedals to the old-fashioned 3-spoke leather-lined steering wheel, from the metallic grey to brushed aluminium, not forgetting the cockpit style chrono-pack on the centre console, the Mini's passenger compartment is worthy of imposing sedans, with playful glamour in addition. The leather bucket seat is firm and maintains particularly well the lumbar vertebrae, often strained - the shock absorbers do not form the strong point of this Anglo-German car. Visibility-wise, the Mini suffers from the intrusive presence of headrests and of the safety hoop. With the hood closed, I find the rear three-quarters visibility is mediocre, but the big driving mirrors compensate rather well for this disadvantage.  Now for the extremely easy to use fabric hood. Its electric mechanism does not require any manual release on the windscreen. The fabric folds into a Z in under 20 seconds above the boot. I often used it as an opening roof to enjoy the fleeting sun during the Easter weekend. When rain threatened, I turned on the CD-mp3 reader to play a good old Stevie Wonder compilation that instantly warms up the passenger compartment via the excellently-spaced loud speakers. Only the high fuel consumption (often around 12-13 l) is difficult for me to accept in this car, even if I'm being highly insincere. According to BMW, female buyers of the Mini don't care a damn about this, no more than about the price of their Prada handbags!  Downtown, the Mini is an agile and powerful city car, particularly easy to handle and meeting your every desire. On the other hand, at 3635 mm long, parking may be a problem. On small forest roads in the Île-de-France, the Mini is a real bomb thanks to its 170 hp (it is capable of reaching 215 km/h in a circuit) while keeping a sound, secure behaviour. The automatic gearbox can be changed to manual mode and you pilot using the control switches on the driving wheel. These technical considerations aside, the greatest satisfaction remains driving in the open air, with your head in the wind under the greenery of the century-old oaks in Rambouillet forest.
Photographies : © E. Tresmontant, G. Rouzeau / ViaMichelin, BMW AG  | |||||||||