CLASSIC CAR REVIEWS - ROVER MINI COOPER

There are lots of Mini Coopers out there and a mind boggling selection of late Rover Mini models bearing the Cooper name. 

The final 10 years of Mini production had more development cash spent than the previous two decades. Changes in bodyshell allowed Rover and then BMW to keep the car compliant with the latest legislation changes, and offer a little bit more in the way of luxury appointments. Here is a selection of some of the later Rover Mini-Coopers.

RSP Rover Mini Cooper
June-October 1990
UK market ‘RSP’ Coopers were only built between June-October 1990 and used the MkVI bodyshell with revised engine mounting. You can spot them apart from mainstream Coopers because they have no ‘Mini Cooper’ badge on the boot, but a circular ‘Cooper’ decal. The ‘John Cooper’ signature was featured on the bonnet, reversed out of the white stripes. Two-tone paint was standard, but the door mirrors and wheel arches are colour coded to the body. A glass sunroof was a standard fitment and tinted glass was always fitted. Inside the seats have black leather facings with
black ‘lightning’ fabric inserts, and a Cooper logo sewn into the seat uprights. Burgundy red carpets are fitted, along with the triple instrument pack in front of the driver with a 110mph speedo.

Mainstream Rover Mini Cooper
June 1990- September 1991
These more mainstream models ran longer than the RSP Cooper special edition, starting at the same June 1990 date but on the Longbridge lines until September 1991. You can spot a mainstream Cooper by it having no bonnet decals (as standard, remember, many were fitted aftermarket). The door mirrors are colour coded to the roof rather than the body, and the wheel arch extensions are black self-coloured plastic. No driving lights were fitted as standard, whereas RSP Coopers had a pair, and the eagleeyed will observe that mainstream Coopers were only ever fitted with sealed-beam headlamps. Glass is non-tinted and no sunroof was fitted.
Inside, the seats have black vinyl facings with ‘Crayons’ cloth, and the carpets are black. The steering wheel is bound in black leather. 
The engine is the same as the RSP, but has no oil cooler and the electric fan is bolted onto the inner wing, with its wiring harness incorporated into the rest of the loom, unlike the RSP which features a separate harness for the fan. The air intake motif featured the Mini Cooper bonnet badge logo embossed on it, which the RSP does not.

Rover Mini Cooper 1.3i 
from September 1991
The big news for 1991 was the introduction of fuel injection. The 1275 A+ motor was a derivative of the MG Metro unit with ‘SPI’ in Rover parlance, or single point injection with a closedloop 3-way cat. Ignition was electronic, and the car had an oil cooler and twin electric cooling fans. Basically it looked the same as the mainstream Cooper, except it placed the winged chromed Mini Cooper badge on the bootlid and had a chrome 1.3i badge also on the boot. Inside was the same as the RSP Cooper, except the Lightning seat fabric extended to the edge of the chairs, and an R652 stereo radio/cassette player was fitted.

Rover Mini Cooper Si 
from 1995
With the resurgence of the Mini name, and an increased interest on the part of new owner of the brand, BMW in ensuring a healthy future for its still-secret MINI, the new-for-96 Si featured the first sight of the latest bodyshell for the original Mini, the Mk VII. The options list expanded, and the full-width dashboard gained potentially a walnut-style dashboard and cream faced instruments.

AUSTIN MINI COOPER REVIEW

The Austin Mini Cooper is, without doubt, the car that defined the 1960s'. We don't have to tell you why you want one, but if you need to persuade your partner CCFS are here to help...

They say you should never meet your heroes, and certainly the Austin Mini Cooper – or any Mini, for that matter – tends to make a less-than perfect first impression to anyone unfamiliar with the hugely popular marque.

Design and engineering genius, Alec Issigonis, may have succeeded in coming up with a car that could seat four adults despite measuring just over 10ft, stem to stern, but the result is a driving position that, to put it politely, is rather bus-like.

That said, there’s an undoubted charm to the Cooper’s trademark spartan cabin. The glasshouse is pleasingly deep and the curved dashboard, complete with its trio of clear dials, adds to the feeling of spaciousness up front. The seats are genuinely comfortable, too, and the simple, rubber-gaited gear lever falls naturally to your hand.
Twist the key in the dinky little ignition slot beneath the enormous speedometer, and the 55bhp 998cc engine coughs briskly into life.

An all-synchromesh gearbox was only introduced in September 1968, so a rudimentary grasp of the art of double-declutching is required to avoid crunched changes into first on earlier cars, but such is the revvy nature of the 55bhp engine that this is hardly a chore.

The transmission whine in first gear is unmistakable, and the shifter snicks smoothly from gear to gear.

You can’t help but grin at the purposeful snuffles from the twin SU carbs and the jaunty manner in which the Hydrolastic suspension (which replaced the earlier cars’ all-independent rubber cones in late 1964) bounces over uneven road surfaces. It feels mighty perky, too indeed, it can hit 60mph from rest in less than 17 seconds and maxes out at a (presumably rather noisy) 90mph.

Outright performance isn’t what the Cooper is all about though people adore these cars for their other-wordly handling. Coopers have been compared, rather unimaginatively, to go-karts ad nauseum, but there really is no better epithet. Throw it into a corner, and there’s precious little body roll, allied to a touch of early-warning understeer, but it always feels very much like it was born to drift.
It changes direction like a fly, the steering and suspension not so much communicating with you, as bellowing through a bullhorn. You might not be terribly comfy behind the wheel, but by God, you’re having fun.
For once, here is a car whose oft-repeated reputation certainly doesn’t flatter to deceive.

History
The Mini was never all that powerful (exactly how Issigonis wanted to keep it), so it fell to sheer serendipity for the giant-killing Montewinner to emerge from the shadows.
John Cooper was already a master of Grand Prix and Formula Junior racing, and following a long drive of a standard car, he approached BMC’s Managing Director, George Harriman, with a do-or-die deal sanction the build run of 1000 Cooper-modified cars (to homologate them for entry into Group 2 racing), and he’d do the hard work of modifying the cars in return for a small royalty and the privilege of having his name on each completed car.

The rest, as they say, is history. A 997cc engine was employed for the ‘new’ car, complete with twin semi-downdraught 1.25in SU carburetors, a re-profiled camshaft and a higher compression ratio.
The results were startling power was up from the standard car’s 34bhp to a whopping 55bhp, and with stopping power to match, all wrapped up in a car whose handling was already legendary, a true world icon was born, almost overnight.
Modifications were soon announced, however the 997cc engine was replaced by a slightly torquier 998cc mill in 1964, and shortly thereafter the original rubber cone suspension was binned in favour of the now-legendary Hydrolastic system. Around this time, too, radial tyres were made standard in place of the old crossplies.
The story didn’t end there, however. A more potent Cooper ‘S’ was introduced in the same year as the ‘standard’ Cooper, sporting a 1071cc engine that upped power to a dizzying 70bhp and brought with it bigger-still servoassisted disc brakes and a top speed of 95mph; zero to 60mph was achieved in 13 seconds.
The prize for the greatest number of Cooper S models built, however, goes to the car that would take Cooper production all the way through to 1971. Capacity was boosted to 1275cc, power spiked at 76bhp. The results spoke for themselves indeed, had it not been for an outrageously blatant show of partisanship on the part of the French judges during the 1966 event, the Cooper would have blitzed the Monte Carlo rally throughout the 1960s. Pat Moss secured the ladies award in the 1962 event, paving the way for outright wins for Paddy Hopkirk (1964), Timo Mäkinen (1965) and Rauno Aaltonen (1967).

Mini-Cooper Trivia

• The 1963-1969 Austin Mini-Cooper was the greatest seller, shifting over 76,000 examples. The original model sold around 25,000 cars in three years, with the short-lived 1963-1964 Cooper S finding just over 4000 owners. The 1964-1965 970cc Cooper S is the rarest, with fewer than 1000 units sold. The later Cooper S shifted over 40,400 units.
• The Cooper S engine is most readily identified by an extra stud and bolt at each end of the cylinder head.
• If your Cooper sports a curious-looking box beneath the centre of the dashboard, then it has a super-rare early recirculating type heater.
• The trademark little tail-light units (left) were finally replaced by much larger duo-tone lights with the introduction of the MkII Cooper, although the bumper overriders were retained.
• The Cooper was a big seller overseas, too international models included the Italian Innocenti and Spanish Authi, although complete knock-down kits were exported as far afield as Chile, Rhodesia, South Africa and Australia.