MINI Roadster Cooper SD
Car review: Sue Baker
What is it?
A MINI Coupe with the top chopped off. In the process it loses 20 litres of upper boot space, but gains a gallon of glamour. Everything comes in twos – two doors, two seats, two litre engine, two wheel drive. That’s front wheel drive, naturally. Yes, BMW owns the company, but this is a MINI we’re talking about.
Private buyers will be wooed by the cachet of the petrol Cooper S, but the business choice is the diesel Cooper SD tested here at £21,630. It has quite a big engine for such a small car: 1,995 cc shoe-horned under the bonnet of something just 3,741 mm long. So you can depend on it being a rapid driving machine.
What’s hot?
- The speed with which that hood goes down, all done and dusted in 8 seconds
- How little boot space is lost compared with the steel-top Coupe
- Equipped with automatic Stop-start, it doesn’t waste fuel sitting idling in traffic …
- … the re-start is quick and unobtrusive, so there’s no inconvenience
- The 141 bhp power output ensures it is no slouch
- Peak torque of 225lb ft is sustained from 1,750 to 2,700 rpm
- It’s quick off the mark, a whisker over eight seconds from 0-62 mph
- With a 118 g/km CO2 output it rates 17% BIK company car tax liability
- The top speed is academic on UK roads, but boast-worthy at 132 mph
- Although it doesn’t look like it, there is ample headroom for six-footers
- Go-kart handling sounds like a cliché, but it really does feel like that
- That huge funky central speedo, if it appeals
What’s not?
- The high price for such a small car, over ten grand a seat
- Bad luck if you want to tow something, because it’s not suitable
- You can’t have the high-performance John Cooper Works spec with a diesel, it’s petrol-only
- Hood down, you need to keep the windows up, or risk getting blown to pieces
- That huge retro central speedo, it doesn’t suit all tastes
- Hood up, rearward vision is pretty poor – good job rear parking sensors are standard
MINI Roadster Cooper SD – the low down
| P11D Value: | £ 21,575 |
| Monthly business rental (ex VAT): | From £287 (3yrs/30,000 miles) |
| Tax Bands 2011/12 to 2013/14: | 17%, 18%, 19% |
| Benefit in kind 2011/12 to 2013/14: | £3,668, £3,884, £4,099 |
| Engine: | 2.0 4 cyl turbocharged diesel |
| CO2 Emissions: | 118g/km |
| Power/torque: | 143PS/305Nm |
| 0-62mph/top speed: | 8.1 secs/132mph |
| Economy (official): | 62.8mpg |
