The drive looks fairly innocuous on a map -you turn right out of the airport, subtly cross a border then sit on the E14 until the glowing bars of Are heave into view. The road gently wends its way through scenery that appears frozen solid, the Cooper S taking it all in its stride on those foolproof-feeling studs – until WOAH!, an urgent, cold-blooded stamp of the brake pedal and a swing left of the Mini’s steering wheel to avoid an errant moose that’s chosen now, of all moments, to wander blindly into the road.
The ‘elk test’ was given its 15 minutes of infamy by the first-gen Mercedes-Benz A-Class, but I’d never imagined experiencing it in real life. Thankfully, the tenacity of those tyres – plus the innate balance of the Mini – makes mincemeat of such tests, whether staged or otherwise.
Even with studded rubber and the loss of a fixed metal roof, the core agility we have always adored in Minis hasn’t been lost: its steering is quick-witted and the rear axle always gleefully follows behind. The more potent Cooper S and JCW drop-tops enjoy a bit of extra chassis bracing, and the end result feels delightfully close to the S hatch that road tester Illya Verpraet enjoyed so much. He praised the low-slung, BMW-like driving position, one that only feels boosted by the loss of B-pillars and more expansive visibility.
My only qualm with the way this car drives is (inevitably) the lack of manual control over its seven-speed transmission. But the car’s own mapping is pretty good, and you can nicely edit its Go-Kart driving mode to mix and match the throttle, steering and DSC mapping to mould a car with a more eager shift pattern, a cleaner steering response and a less studious eye on your mischief. It’s a perfectly natural car in which to start unwinding the stability control, although I’ll reserve ‘DSC Off’ for the frozen lake…
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