Mini GP2 daily driver

[Brainpox]

Just over two weeks ago I traded in my BMW M2 and got a Mini GP2 to run as my daily driver. Not really an apples to apples comparison but I’ve got a few things to say.

Running costs have been the biggest change really. The reason I got rid of the M2 was I wasn’t using it properly and was plunging so much money into running it - I had finance owing, it was quite thirsty and consumables weren’t cheap (I had two non-repairable punctures in the 18 months I had the car - £250 each for a new rear tyre fitted on top of the pair I had already bought to replace the worn ones). It had got to the point where I wasn't taking it out for a spin because I was going to have to stick another tank of fuel in it and didn't fancy the idea. The GP got 47mpg on the run down from Essex and is running an average of 36 with a vast mix of driving and decent tyres are £100.

The brakes are amazing. 330mm 6-pot Brembos on a 1200kg car so they won’t be letting me down. They seem to produce a lot of brake dust though.

The Bilstein adjustable suspension is firm but controls the car brilliantly over bumps and in the corners. The GP is better round the corners than the M2 (having a short wheel base and 350kg less to carry probably helps more than the suspension I guess).

Having a manual again is nice. My last few cars have been dual clutch so I was worried about getting used to it but as soon as I went out on the test drive it felt instantly familiar. It’s a good box too. I test drove a JCW years ago and it was quite notchy, but with 27k miles on it the GPs gearbox had been broken in and works a treat (took me a while to work out how to get into reverse reliably though…). The clutch is a lot lighter than the JCWs was as well, don’t know what that’s about. Helpfully the car applies some throttle as you bring the clutch up so I've managed to avoid stalling it at all since getting it.

The engine has surprised me. It’s based on a very old engine that has gone through a few revisions over the years. It’s probably the lack of weight but it feels stronger than the 215hp it’s rated at. You merrily shift through the gears enjoying the sound and the speed soon builds. It’ll climb to 85 in third in no time. I was expecting to miss the power of the M2 but not yet! In reality I suspect the GP is about on par with a Fiesta ST but I was expecting it to feel underpowered after the BMW.

The sound is terrific. There’s little sound deadening and no rear seats between the sports exhaust and the drivers seat. All the noise is authentic, not through the speakers, and you can hear it better with the windows up rather than down meaning I can enjoy it in all weathers. It’s got quite a gruff/retro note to it. Sport mode adds some synthetic bangs but you have to work for them, there are noticeably more after driving harder, where the M2 hands them to you on a platter all the time.

The GP comes with half-leather Recaros unique to the car. The heated seats work incredibly well - the M2s were total ste in comparison, taking ages to heat up. The interior looks quite upmarket from the driver’s seat as the dashboard is wrapped in leather. The buttons lower down in the interior look a bit tacky but they feel reassuringly well made. Single zone climate control with no .5 degrees options is nice too! Refreshingly simple as BMW don’t let you sync the two sides in a dual-zone system.

Luckily the previous owner had put Michelin PS3s on the car as the semi-slicks it comes with as standard are supposed to be terrible in anything but warm dry weather so this would have been the first thing I’d have changed if needed. He also put paint protection film all round, a pretty rough job in some places but nice that I don’t need to worry about minor scratches etc.

The limited traction mode (like MDM mode) is a good half way house that stops the car cutting out the throttle all the time when pushing on whilst still keeping the electronic LSD (i.e. braking the inside wheel through a tight corner). It also puts ‘GP Mode’ in small writing on the dash which I love. Much more subtle than the glaring screens you get on newer Minis.

No rear wiper kinda sucks in the recent weather though, I’ll be honest.

So far I'm loving the car, it got under my skin immediately and it's hard to explain why. It’s engaging even at 20mph, quite easy to drive and plenty of space in the back for going on road trips etc. The carbon spoiler is pretty cool too I guess

Here are some dealer pictures as I haven't got any decent ones of my own yet:

[Brainpox]

Looks like I'll be ordering a K&N then. Thanks guys

[Brainpox]

Great morning for a blast over Beachy Head before the traffic hits...

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Still miss driving mine, one of the best hot hatches of all time to drive imho.

As an ownership experience it was a total let down unfortunately but that’s MINI for you.

I’d love to try one with a proper lsd fitted as on track it was the only weak spot (Apart from perhaps the seats and comedy shaped gear leaver!), the pseudo diff just couldn’t react quick or consistent enough.

Drove all around Europe in ours, surprisingly practical for a two up euro tour with no back seats and could keep up with genuine super cars up Cols and Passes with its tiny footprint and turbo punch. Furthest we got was Monaco on our honeymoon.

Had to laugh about the tappety sound, never has a car sounded so st from the front but so fantastic from the rear! The standard exhaust was great, I remember racing an old stbox Punto down the Italian side of the Barnadino Pass with both of us trying to use the brake pedal the least, and all you could hear was tyre squeal and bangs from the MINI exhaust.

Great memories...

I followed your eurotrip thread with great interest a few years ago. I think it kept the idea of a Mini in the back of my mind

[Brainpox]

Got the K&N in today. Can't believe how much of a difference it has made to the noise. Certainly more than it did to my 1.2 Corsa a few years ago More induction bark under load and lots of whooshes from the blowoff valve not bad for £50 Shame I can't properly test it with the weather we have right now but so far so good

I also had to get the left hand undertray replaced today as I managed to break it driving through a deep puddle I hadn't seen (oops...). I suspect it may have already been damaged and the water was the final straw but it's a lesson learned either way...

Did highlight a slight problem with the GP though. It sits so low you can't get a standard trolley jack underneath I couldn't even get my arm underneath to have a poke about at the tray. So you have to use the bottle jack to get it up a bit and then a proper trolley jack to get it the rest of the way

Oh well. It looked pretty good against all the F56 JCWs the dealer had outside - the GP has much more stance about it.

[Brainpox]

The more I drive this car the more I understand that it's really meant for light track use rather than pure road driving. It's quick enough that I don't really take it beyond about 4.5k rpm on the lanes because it starts to really take off past that point!

It also suffers a bit with tramlining, made worse by the damp weather we've had lately. I think the chassis can handle higher speeds than I'm willing to take it to on the road, but not much more power. I don't think I'd see much benefit in getting a remap.

The brakes are way OTT for road use too. I think if you're using them in anger regularly then you're a bit of a mentalist. I'm not complaining - just an observation.

For some reason it comes with the rear cupholder still in place. Turns out it is a perfect size for those McDonalds treats...

[Brainpox]

I got mine for a shade under £18k. It was the cheapest standard car advertised at the time. But as they are so rare it's difficult to know if that's a good price or a bad one.

[Brainpox]

The other day I noticed the GP2 was overdue an oil change. I don't have the space or tools to do it safely myself (trolley jack doesn't even fit underneath) so looked into supplying the oil and filter myself and getting the garage down the road to do it for me.

The cheapest I could find the stuff online was £55 and I guessed it would be around £20-30 labour.

Thought I'd just check the main dealer and they do it while you wait for £79 - and I don't need to piss about waiting for a delivery. Result! Though if you want the pollen filter done as well it's an extra £40! Think I'll manage that one on my own thanks

Had to get a new can of tyre sealant too. The old one expired July 2017. Good thing I didn't need it...

Also, a friend from work is going to be racing in some Mini Challenge events this year. He was showing me some videos on YouTube, it was kinda cool to see where the styling cues for the GP came from. I'll happily admit I was pretty ignorant til now. A couple of pics I found of the launch back in 2010:

[Brainpox]

Unfortunately I've put the Mini up for sale now. Had a great time with the car and it was all I expected it to be, and more.

The front dampers let go mid way through last year so had those refurbished at Lohen, replaced the rear bushes to fix the knocking that all R56s suffer with, replaced a brake light bulb housing as one of the connectors had corroded slightly, and that's it. It has been totally faultless, even barely burning off any oil in the time I've had it - for some reason I was expecting to need to top it up every couple of months. Long term average of over 36mpg too, short journeys and spirited driving included.

I need something more practical. I've got into mountain biking and while I can transport the bike in the GP, it involves using a suction roof rack and it's a bit of a faff, not to mention a security concern (near £4k bike that I'm not keeping an eye on while I go get something to eat is a bit of a worry).



Hopefully the sale will be fairly quick, and then I'll be looking at a Seat Leon ST Cupra 280/290, in manual guise, for the poke and the LSD, but also being able to toss the bike in the back and not worrying about suction cups holding 22kg at 70mph...

[Brainpox]

Chrispee said:

Sorry to hear you're selling up. I've just handed back a Cupra 300ST that i used for bike carrying duties as well, would recommend a test drive as it was a great all round car but will be nowhere near the level of involvment compared to the GP. Worth noting manuals have been noted to have weak clutches that cant handle the torque for longer terms.

I am considering a late R53 JCW from a friend for the OH (I now have a Focus estate for aforementioned bikes) and the idea of a Seasucker or similar is playing on my mind. Have you found it ok?

I don't expect any car I own from now on will match the GP for fun to be fair. The state of the roads in the south east atm makes it difficult to really use it anyway. I figured the Cupra would be the closest I get can to a dynamic car in estate form - relatively light compared to others, the LSD for traction, and reasonable running costs.

Fun is lower down my priority list anyway, since discovering mountain biking and the freedom to go as fast as you dare as you throw yourself off small cliffs with no plod to tell you off

The Seasucker has objectively worked brilliantly. They recommend sticking one cup on glass but the GP doesn't let you do that with how steep the windscreen is, and the lack of a sunroof, and the bike is physically too big to hang from the rear window. Then Mini's are renowned for very thin metal on the roof so the bike wobbles as the roof bends in an out as you go over bumps, which 1) could cause problems with the paint/roof, especially in hotter weather, but also 2) makes me worried about how well the suction is holding (there are orange bits on the cups that tell if they are losing suction but you can't see them on the GP!). And although it is quick to put on and off, you have to be methodical with making sure the cups are clean and stored properly so they don't degrade, and you clean the paint with quick detailer each time you use it to maximise the strength of the hold. And then as I mentioned, if you go round the corner to get something to eat, your bike isn't secured with anything (other than not having a front wheel) so I never felt too comfortable with it.

tl;dr can't fault the Seasucker but isn't for me (or for Minis imo)

[Brainpox]

The GP is gone. Had no interest in it as the car was keyed a few weeks ago, with the wrap on there it makes things difficult as you need to take the wrap off to fix the paint, then replace the decals. I don't have the time or interest in sorting it just to sell so I ended up trading it in for a pretty rough deal, but I'm glad to be shot of it tbh. There was no such thing as a relaxing drive in the GP and it had started to grind on me after nearly 15000 miles of what was mostly good fun.

This is the replacement, a Cupra 280 estate in dynamic grey. It's way faster and yet way more comfortable than I was expecting. I won't bother with a thread for it so I'll just put up a photo to close this thread off (yes it needs a clean)



If anyone wants a GP2 there will probably be a fairly cheap one appearing near Bristol/Newport in the not too distant future (hopefully scratchless).