Fun in the Alps with a Cooper S
Discussion
If you're hiring a car in Austria, there is a great company who have a pretty damn fine fleet of cars including Lambos, Ferraris and even a new Phantom. www.blueboxrent.com/ Our budget only stretched to a Cooper S for the week, but with a bit of Matt Munro on the ipod, it was a rather pleasant way to drive through the Alps 
Not driven a new Mini before and have to say it was brilliant. For the twisty Alpine passes it was perfect - with the low down grunt I just left it in 2nd or 3rd and it had no problem with the steep inclines. This also made for easy overtaking when shooting past slow moving wagons and coaches. My old Civic Type-R would have been quite hard work going through the gears to keep up the same pace. In the valleys it cruised along nicely and was very comfortable. I couldn't believe the fuel economy - we drove for 3 hours over some of the most twisty roads in Europe to get to Italy, and it only used 1/10th of a tank. Brilliant for a car with that performance. The only slight downside for me was the torque steer which actually nearly caught me out on a few occasions. I think part of that was me not having driven a FWD car for a few years though.
We also managed to get two snowboards in which surprised the car hire guy. Who says they're not practical
Overall a great car - I know they've had good reviews but I was pleasantly surprised by just how good it was 
Not driven a new Mini before and have to say it was brilliant. For the twisty Alpine passes it was perfect - with the low down grunt I just left it in 2nd or 3rd and it had no problem with the steep inclines. This also made for easy overtaking when shooting past slow moving wagons and coaches. My old Civic Type-R would have been quite hard work going through the gears to keep up the same pace. In the valleys it cruised along nicely and was very comfortable. I couldn't believe the fuel economy - we drove for 3 hours over some of the most twisty roads in Europe to get to Italy, and it only used 1/10th of a tank. Brilliant for a car with that performance. The only slight downside for me was the torque steer which actually nearly caught me out on a few occasions. I think part of that was me not having driven a FWD car for a few years though.
We also managed to get two snowboards in which surprised the car hire guy. Who says they're not practical
Overall a great car - I know they've had good reviews but I was pleasantly surprised by just how good it was Edited by benny.c on Monday 2nd June 18:37
Awesome pictures mate, also sounds like you had a blast. I've been meaning to take a trip to europe in my cooper s, any tips on where best to go etc?
Regarding the torque steer, it's really bad in the R56. Much much worse than the older supercharged version (I had a tuned JCW with ~230bhp and didn't suffer anywhere near the same levels as the R56, and they had similar torque figures).
I'm getting mine remapped soon so I expect the torque steer to be insane, we shall see.
Regarding the torque steer, it's really bad in the R56. Much much worse than the older supercharged version (I had a tuned JCW with ~230bhp and didn't suffer anywhere near the same levels as the R56, and they had similar torque figures).
I'm getting mine remapped soon so I expect the torque steer to be insane, we shall see.
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