The long-awaited MINI

You are genetically predisposed to adore the MINI.

To assure that babies would be cooed over and cared for humankind was hard-wired to find small critters with proportionally overlarge eyes (and head) appealing. The MINI design takes that predisposition into consideration. Thus you are, by nature, prone to cooing and caring. (You will not be alone.)

You are intellectually destined to admire the MINI.

BMW, the builders, have packed into this cute thing an extraordinary assemblage of engineering innovation. Thus as you coo you will also be impressed. Furthermore, a higher percentage of interior area is covered by airbags than in any other vehicle. Safety features abound. You will feel cared for as well.

You are kinesthetically susceptible to the feel of the MINI.

One operates the car from a driving environment that warms the senses with tactile and visual pleasures. The instruments and controls are pleasingly placed feeling good to the hand and look "right" to the eye. Underway, the car clings to the twistiest roads with a bulldog puppy tenacity delivering a pleasant sensation to the motion sensors in the brain and body. Steering input gets that instant and desired response drivers have learned to expect of a BMW product. And the brakes snug the car to a stop with admirable assurance even on pavement awash with a deluge.

In short (and by the way the MINI is the shortest car on the US market) this is one well-rounded serious-but-fun little driving package that is also easy to park and merely sips at the pump. (Expected highway mileage: 38 mpg.)

But about that "little:" as small as the MINI is, it carries big. Seat four full-grown passengers within, tuck a reasonable allotment of stuff in the trunk and storage spaces and listen to the chorus of "There's more space here than I thought possible!"

Yes, you may also hear some negative comments: "This is not what I call a smooth ride." It is not.

When a vehicle is designed to stick to the road with the degree of adhesion exhibited by the MINI the vagaries and variations of that road are usually translated to the people inside. Serious drivers tend to like that because they are in charge of controlling the car and prefer as much information as possible about the surface on which they maneuver. Professional passengers, especially those used to the billowy softness of large Detroit iron, usually prefer being isolated from the exterior world. Simple: We'll take the MINI and have fun and let Uncle Clyde float the others in his old Buick Roadmaster.

The MINI has a predecessor, the extremely popular Austin and Morris Minis first produced by the British Motor Corporation beginning in 1959. Anyone in England in the Happening '60s might well wonder what Brits drove before the Mini appeared. They were scuttling about everywhere. Rock stars drove them; royalty drove them; racing drivers drove them. More Brits earned their driver's license in a Mini than in any other car in history.

A small but intense following developed in the US. No more than 10,000 were ever sold in the states for several reasons, one being that truly small cars have never done well in the vastness of US highways. (The new MINI is one-third larger in size than the original cars.) And then with the stiffening of US safety regulations the mini Mini could not meet the requirements for distance between driver's head and the windshield. Technically, no more Minis came to America, but in reality avid collectors found a way. A network of Mini owners clubs web the country. It is said that more Minis are now in the US than were ever sold here. (CONTINUE...)