Super Cooper

By ALASTAIR SLOANE

It was 1972, and the sun was coming up on a pretty much deserted highway between Sydney and Newcastle. The speedo on my 1970 Mark II Mini Cooper S, white with a black stripe, said 105mph. It was lying on the high side. Speedos still do.

But the New South Wales highway patrol cop in the faster Holden Torana XU1 must have figured it was accurate enough. He came out of nowhere, no flashing light, no siren. He pulled up alongside, looked across at me and shook his head.

I slowed and looked for a place to pull over. "Damn, this is gonna hurt the pay packet." He remained alongside as I came to a stop. I looked at him again. He smiled and nodded - as if to say "That's better". Then he took off his cap and sped away. He was chuckling. I'm sure of it.

A cop I knew explained my luck. "The highway guys haven't been using XU1s for long. He probably wanted to see how it went against the Cooper S."

The Cooper S was a benchmark performance car back then. Nowadays the average hatchback would beat it in a straight line. Not through the twisty stuff, though. Not in second and third gear with the 1275cc engine howling like a banshee, the exhaust note on edge and the tyres biting at the road. No way in the world.

The engine in the new Cooper S howls, too. It's not the most modern mill around, but it's bigger, it's supercharged, and it's much smoother and flexible throughout the rev range. The old engine always sounded like it was in pain, like something might just break, especially around the top end.

The exhaust note still barks, but the tyres don't bite at the road. They grip and sling the car out of corners. Thirty years of technology gets the power down better. Same length half-shafts have pretty much eliminated torque steer and the frantic scrambling.

The ride and handling is better, with MacPherson struts in the front and BMW's 3-Series multi-link setup in the rear. The steering is so much quicker, with 2.5 turns from lock to lock. The driving position is a world away, too. So is the car's strength, a prerequisite with modern safety requirements.

But comparisons are pointless - the old Cooper S belongs to another time, another place. The new supercharged Cooper S borrows nothing but the name.

BMW trotted it out the other day in Auckland. It comes in two exclusive colours - dark silver and electric blue. It's slightly larger than the naturally aspirated Cooper (which arrived earlier this year), mostly because of styling add-ons such as sideskirts.

It's about 110kg heavier, too, and has a better balanced front/rear weight distribution. The bonnet, with its air slot for the intercooler, sits slightly high in the front. It helps to give the Cooper S a serious stance.

The 1.6-litre, 16-valve engine (a joint development between BMW and Chrysler) uses the same basic block as the Cooper but comes with uprated pistons, crankshaft, conrods and valves to handle the thermal and mechanical loads imposed by the Roots blower. The compression ratio is 8.3:1 against the Cooper's 10.6:1.

It puts out 120kW at 6000rpm and 210Nm of torque at 4000rpm. The Cooper's engine delivers 85kW at 6000rpm and 149Nm at 4500rpm.

The Cooper sprints from zero to 100km/h in about 10 seconds; the Cooper S gets there in under eight. The Cooper has a top speed of 185km/h; the Cooper S goes on to about 220km/h. Thanks to the blower, most of the torque in the Cooper S is available from 2000rpm.

The supercharger, in terms of technology, is the oldest thing about the car. It was patented before the internal combustion engine, back in 1865 by Americans F. M. and P. H. Roots. Mostly it was used to better ventilate mine shafts.

The engine is mated to a six-speed Getrag gearbox, a double synchromesh unit which works as one with the engine. It's one of the best things about the car. Sixth gear is a long-legged overdrive ratio for fuel economy. Top speed is available in fifth.

The Cooper S comes with every whizzbang electronic safety device from four or six airbags to traction control to cornering control. The more advanced Dynamic Stability Control system is optional.

Standard tyres are 16-inch "run-flat" Dunlops or Pirellis. Get a puncture and the tyres will get you to the nearest garage. They make more safety sense than "space savers". Low-profile, 17-inch tyres are optional.

Someone from BMW said to wind the windows down during the drive programme. "The exhaust's retuned to offer a harder edge than the Mini Cooper."

Could the sound be better than the car's stereo, called "Mini Boost"? You betcha. In third gear, on the power, it offered a frenzied, rasping note. Like Willie Nelson and Joe Cocker belting out Born to be Wild at a knees-up in a pub.

In sixth, the frugal ratio, the exhaust settles on an easy-listening sound, a mix of Ella Fitzgerald's Summertime and Brook Benton's Georgia.

The Cooper S costs $44,900. My old Cooper S cost $A2650 ($3130) with demonstration miles on the clock. It was stolen. Found it propped up against a fence in an industrial area near Sydney airport. The only thing left intact was the memory.