Mini WRC: One eye on the future, one on the past

Mini's Prodrive-prepped Countryman WRC car. Photo / Supplied

It was a brilliant line and I'd dearly love to have though of it myself. At a packed press conference at BMW's Oxford plant to mark the launch of the Mini World Rally Championship (WRC) team earlier this month, 200 journalists were grilling the managers, engineers and drivers about the performance of Mini's new competition car and the team's prospects for the coming season.

Then Autocar contributor and design expert Hilton Holloway cut right to the heart of an issue with which BMW probably wrestles every day as it develops Britain's most famous automotive brand. Does Mini, he wanted to know, have to get "permission from history" for everything it does?

Henry Ford was famously dismissive of the value of history, but over at Mini they often appear to be obsessed by it. The current standard Mini hatchback is bigger and heavier than its 1959 namesake, but its appealing looks are a reinterpretation of the original, rather than something completely new.

When the estate model was introduced, BMW recalled a name from Mini's past, the Clubman, while the 2009 Beachcomber concept was clearly inspired by the Mini Moke. So it always seemed inevitable that BMW would aspire to replicate one of the most successful chapters of the original Mini story bygoing rallying.

The decision to enter the Mini into the WRC was only possible because a few years ago BMW for once ignored history and set about producing a Mini for which there was no precedent, a big four-door, four-wheel drive model called the Countryman.

Some fans of the brand aren't all that keen on the model, partly because the Mini look doesn't scale particularly well to a larger, more upright shape, but this bigger vehicle is far better suited to rallying than the standard car.

When the motorsport and automotive engineering company Prodrive started looking at the WRC rules being proposed for the 2011 season, it began sketching out a generic car design to fully exploit the new regulations.

According to chairman and chief executive Dave Richards, when the Countryman was announced, Prodrive found a very good off-the-shelf fit for the new formula. "Every element ticked the boxes," he says. The connection between Prodrive and the Mini rally project was sealed at a meeting between Richards and Ian Robertson, a BMW board member and former chief executive officer of BMW-owned Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2009.

The result is the car just launched at Oxford, which will take part in only six rounds of this year's WRC.

BMW clearly means business; the link to Prodrive represents a serious statement of intent. The Banbury-based company is the force behind many successful road cars and competition vehicles, and it had a long and successful association with Subaru in the WRC until only a few years ago.

Mini's 2011 drivers, Kris Meeke and Dani Sordo, were paraded across the stage at the Oxford launch alongside the legendary Paddy Hopkirk and Rauno Aaltonen, who were responsible for many of the original Mini's competition successes. The bar has been set - and it has been set very high. While this year's programme is limited, Minis will be taking part in the entire WRC calendar in 2012 and Richards expects them to be challenging for the title in 2013.

In the meantime, Richards admits that 2011 will be something of a testing year as the team gathers experience with the car. Kris Meeke says that he had a good feeling about the WRC Mini from the beginning, but adds that as a driver he will benefit from the chance to "grow with the package" as it develops further.

The car is already very stiff, apparently, and the Countryman's "wheel at each corner" design should be good for handling, just like the original Mini. The 1.6-litre turbocharged engine, based on the design that goes into the normal production line, has been developed by BMW Motorsport, and it's paired with a gearbox from the competition transmission specialists, Xtrac.

Meanwhile, the roll cage has an unusual design that takes it outside the central B-pillar, making the WRC Mini more spacious than most other rally cars. Apart from an enormous rear wing, the body appears to be very similar to a standard Countryman, but the WRC car sits lower on its suspension. This dramatically transforms its appearance for the better, so it's a pity that there are apparently no immediate plans to make a car with a similar look for the showroom.

Customers who want to go rallying in a Prodrive-preparedMini can get to the starting line if they have A3;350,000 (NZ$722,875) to spare, but nobody was letting on about how much Mini's WRC team would cost to run. There's understandably similar reticence when it comes to power outputs and other data that might be of interest to Mini's rivals in the championship.

The new Minis will carry a red and white livery that hearkens to their classic past, but today's fans will be able to follow the action in ways that their counterparts in the Sixties could never have imagined.

The team is expecting to make extensive use of Facebook to keep their fans up to date on developments, and Richards thinks that WRC could become a pioneer for live internet television coverage.

That day in Oxford, I'm not sure anyone satisfactorily answered the question about the role history plays in developing Britain's most famous small car.

The official line, expressed by Robertson, is that "this brand is facing one way and that's into the future". But I'm sure that if the WRC Mini repeats its predecessors' history of success, everyone will be happy.

- THE INDEPENDENT