After eight months of hard road and
track use, Eveleigh’s giant-slaying hot hatch has departed the fleet
Can the number of tests that a long-termer
gets called upon to attend be taken as an indication of how great that car is?
If so, the Mini GP must be something quite special. During its eight months
with us our GP appeared at TCoty (more in a moment), eCoty (where it finished a
very respectable sixth place behind five cars sporting six-figure price tags),
in this month’s hot hatch extravaganza and even at our recent 4x4mega-test
(where it acted as a front-wheel-drive benchmark).
JCW
GP is grippy, responsive and well balanced on track
Sometimes I felt like peeling o" the
GP logos and stripes and affixing a ‘One’ badge to the tailgate in an attempt
to stop the key being wrenched from my grasp yet again. But that would have
fooled no one, as the GP offered too many other visual clues to its abilities:
the huge carbon fibre roof spoiler, the rear diffuser, the bigger front brakes,
the nose-down stance…
And these are just some of the features
that help the $49,346 GP justify its position as the second most expensive Mini
ever (the Paceman JCW costs $1,285 more…). Less immediately obvious are a front
strut brace, a fully paneled underbody (contributing to a claimed 90 per cent
increase in downforce at the car’s rear), lightly treaded Kumho Ecsta V700
Sport tyres and, behind the dark rear glass, no rear seats. The GP isn’t short
of kit up front, though: DAB radio, Bluetooth, heated Recaros, climate control
and bi-xenon lights are all standard.
The
cabin is noticeably sober compared to the attention grabbing exterior
YF62 NYK arrived in mid-July 2013 with just
over 4,000miles on the clock, having spent the preceding months performing
various duties on BMW’s press fleet. My initial miles were dominated by how
busy I found myself behind the wheel. Torque-steer and tramlining on all but
the smoothest roads were magnified by the super-quick Mini steering rack. I had
concerns that this might be a chore to live with day-in, day-out, but in fact
the GP was surprisingly well behaved on those rare occasions when I managed to
resist driving everywhere like I was on a qualifying lap.
It was partly for this reason that I never
felt inclined to play with the adjustable coilover suspension, and also because
the GP worked so well on track even on its default road settings, as I discovered
on a track evening at the Bedford Autodrome. It was an opinion confirmed by a
Cayman S-beating ‘best road car’ finish in our 2013 Track Car of the Year
contest. At the latter, the GP proved that a track car really doesn’t need to
have rear-wheel drive to be serious fun. ‘Enthralling, challenging and hugely
entertaining,’ concluded Jethro Bovingdon in his write-up.
With
the removal of the rear seats, there is 700mm of boot length up to the strut
and more than 1,000mm to the seat backs
The GP was a riot on the road too. The
claimed 6.3sec 0-62mph time and the 1.6-litre turbo engine’s 215bhp peak power
figure really don’t convey just how rapid the GP was across the ground. Maybe
the 8:23 Nürburgring lap time and the tales of GPs showing 230bhp+ on rolling
roads do a better job. Suffice to say it was what you might call ‘properly
quick’, and it was properly intense for the driver, too. It may not be the most
polished front driver, but I’ve yet to experience one that’s more involving.
Contributing to this was the phenomenal
grip from those Kumhos – in the dry, at least. For a while I thought they could
be what defined the car, but after we got through two full sets in under
8,000miles (yes, really – not helped by them only having 5mm of tread when
new), I discovered otherwise when we switched to some more sensible rubber for
the winter. On Dunlop Sport Maxxes, the GP had less outright grip in the dry
(obviously), but its chassis remained thoroughly involving. And better still, I
could now enjoy the car in all weathers.
Turbocharged
1.6-litre four pot develops 215bhp and 192lb ft
Although tyres were a bit of a financial
burden ($1,030 for a set of Kumhos, $918 or the Dunlops), there were no other
costs apart from fuel. The car was close to needing its first service when it
went back with over 16,000 miles recorded, but it didn’t use any oil nor
require any other maintenance. Impressive stuff, as it’s safe to say our GP had
a hard life during its time with us – and no doubt before that too. The only
sign of wear was a bit of ‘road rash’ on the vents before the rear wheelarches
and on the black trim behind each wheel, from those sticky Kumhos throwing up
stones. This might bother some, but tome it looked like well-earned battle
scars.
So the GP wasn’t too hardcore to live with
every day and was joyous when the right road (or a track) presented itself. And
not once did it fail to feel very special. Only 300 GPs are coming to the UK. I
feel privileged to have run one for eight months. If you own one, you’re very lucky
indeed.
