Mini convertible fun and free-spirited

By ALASTAIR SLOANE

The people selling the new Mini convertible aren't sure what advertising campaign they will go with in New Zealand: one showing a bloke jumping off a balcony into the soft-top car, or one charting life from birth to death with a Mini convertible in between.

The balcony ad conveys a bit of illicit hanky-panky: the fellow has been caught with his pants down and he's getting out of there lickety-split. The birth-to-death ad is a celebration of life, a montage ending in an image of an old man lying in a half-open coffin.

"We are not sure about that one," said Peter Jarratt, the general manager of BMW's Mini division. "We are still working things through."

The message that Mini wants to get across is its new corporate catchphrase for the convertible: "Always Open". Hence the open-top car for the Lothario and open-top coffin for the dearly departed.

But the balcony ad is fun, suggestive, celebrating the young and the restless and the free-spirited image Mini has enjoyed since it first appeared in the Swinging Sixties. The birth-to-death ad ends on a sad note, with the thinning hair of a corpse.

Jarratt might not go with either advertisement. The press and television campaign won't kick off until January 1, when the convertible starts to arrive in numbers.

But the campaign he eventually settles on will also invoke the imagery of Mini's global letter to potential convertible customers.

It says, in part: "In the old days it was easy to tell open people from regular people. Open people motored around in goggles and leather caps. Today it's harder to spot an open person. But they are still the exception and not the rule. If you are considering a new car the best thing you can do is be honest with yourself. Are you an open person? Please, take some time to think about it. The fact is we didn't make many of these, and we're sort of hoping they end up in the right hands."

Mini wants the soft-top to become a motoring icon, too. It talks of developing a convertible culture based around the extensive list of tailor-made options.

It has turned Henry Ford's Model T maxim - "any colour you want as long as it's black" - on its ear.

You want a lime Mini with purple mudguards, red door handles, a pink bootlid, yellow leather upholstery with orange and blue stitching, and a horn that whistles When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again? Wait three months for the factory to customise the car and it's yours.

"There is an awful lot you can do to fuel emotions and excitement with the Mini," says Jarratt.

The carmaker launched the new soft-top in Auckland the other day, with five demonstration examples of the $44,900 Cooper and its five-speed manual gearbox (the five-speed automatic costs $47,900). Both will officially go on sale around Christmas/New Year, with across-the-board upgrades. Mini says 75 per cent of buyers will choose manual models.

The more powerful Cooper S and its six-speed manual transmission will arrive later in January, priced at $52,900.

Mini is making much of the convertible's $7000 price premium over the hardtop, crowing that it is not as much as the $10,000 difference in recommended price between the soft-top and hardtop Volkswagen Beetles.

But the argument is academic and shouldn't be treated seriously. They are two different vehicles.

The Mini is smaller, sportier, and a lot more more fun to drive quickly. It's the Hare in Aesop's Fables, a sprinter from A to B with a surprisingly good ride. The Beetle is California Dreamin', laidback with better seating and considerably more interior room. It's Aesop's Tortoise.

Passengers in the rear of a modern Mini, convertible or hardtop, need to be contortionists to survive a trip to the shops. Beetle passengers travel in style in comparison.

Each soft-top will find its own customer. The point of the Mini is that it combines wind-in-the-hair driving with road-hugging, point-and-shoot performance, just like the hardtop.

The Cooper and Cooper S are powered by a 1.6-litre four-cylinder engine. The naturally aspirated Cooper engine produces 85kW at 6000rpm and 150Nm at 4500rpm for a top speed of 193km/h and a 0 to 100km/h time of 9.8sec.

The supercharged Cooper S unit develops 125kW at 6000rpm and 220Nm at 4000rpm. It sprints from a standstill to 100km/h in 7.4sec and to a top speed of 215km/h. An after-market performance kit boosts its top speed to 240km/h.

Mini says it has gone to great lengths to retain the driving enjoyment of the hard-top models, including strengthening the body to avoid a soft-top's bugbear, scuttleshake, or twisting of the body under driving forces. Think of scuttleshake like a shoebox: with the lid on it resists twisting; with it off it moves every which way.

A brief drive of the Mini reveals considerable torsional body strength, aided by the advantages of having a short body and wheel at each corner.

The power-operated soft-top is available in black, blue or green fabric. It opens at the touch of a button, part-way to reveal a sunroof, or fully to tuck itself in the car's rear in about 15 seconds.

That's when you notice the two rear roll hoops to protect the careless driver should he or she turn the car on its ear. So far, the incidence of Mini hardtop or convertible rollovers worldwide is minimal, despite 65 per cent of sales going to men.