Mini Coupe v Peugeot RCZ v Audi TT

Many thought that the Countryman diluted Mini’s mojo, despite its evident success. Will the Coupe rekindle the passion?

Words: Sam Phiip
Photography: Lee Brimble

This article originally appeared in the November issue of Top Gear magazine 

Is it a helmet? Is it a baseball cap? No, you haven’t wandered onto the pages of What Sporting Headwear Monthly?. This is TopGear, and this is important: what, exactly,
is that strange growth atop the Mini Coupe?

See, when the Coupe was first shown at the Frankfurt motor show in 2009, Mini’s design director, Gert Hildebrand, who is a German, proudly revealed its, er, unique roof design was inspired by his teenage son’s habit of wearing a baseball cap back-to-front. 

Shortly thereafter, someone in Mini head office who may or may not have been named Helmut, decided a spotty adolescent’s tribute to Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst wasn’t an image they wanted associated with the sportiest model in the Mini line-up, instead rebranding the Mini’s unique roof as a ‘helmet design’, which is obviously far more difficult to make childish jokes about.

Whatever you make of its hat, parked up in a deserted shipyard beneath Middlesbrough’s big blue transporter bridge, there’s no denying the Coupe looks fresh and different. Then again, the seagull-pecked carcass of a long-dead herring would look fresh and different here.

A couple of years ago, Middlesbrough was ranked as the worst place to live in the UK
– presumably only because the researchers never saw my second-year student flat – and
it provides a backdrop that would make even the Ssangyong Rodius look appealing.

Unfortunately for the Coupe, we’re judging it against rather stiffer competition than a couple of rusty cranes. More specifically, we’re judging it against the Audi TT and Peugeot RCZ. That’s some mean opposition: the RCZ is the best-looking, best-driving Peugeot in a decade (no ‘best singer in Jedward’ jokes, please) and our reigning Coupe of the Year, while the TT needs little introduction. Forget the tanning salon vibe of the original 1998 design: now in its second generation, the compact Audi is a proper driver’s car.

For its first-ever UK test, we’ve got the most potent Coupe in the range: the top-of-the-pile John Cooper Works version. This is the fastest-accelerating production Mini in history, capable of hitting 62mph in 6.4 seconds, courtesy of its 211bhp, 1.6-litre turbo engine. That’s a near-perfect match for the entry-level TT – which boasts exactly the same power output from its 2.0-litre turbo – and just a nose ahead of the top-power RCZ: the Peugeot’s engine, closely related to that in the Mini, develops 200bhp.

The Mini isn’t quite an on-the-nose rival for the TT and RCZ: while both the Audi and the Peugeot sport a tiny pair of rear chairs, the Mini is, to use the obligatory prefix, a strict two-seater (as opposed to what? A lenient two-seater?).

In fact, if you discount the super-limited JCW GP hatch of 2006, it’s the first production two-seater in Mini’s 50-and-a-bit-year heritage. Behind the driver is a space for a couple of coats or a dachshund stored transversely, then a whacking great lump of plastic cladding separating cabin from the 280-litre boot (bigger than the Clubman’s, no less). 

The hat-wearing Coupe is certainly a more... challenging piece of design than the sleek Audi and curvaceous Peugeot (though, while we’re on the subject, when is Peugeot going to graft the 508’s far more palatable nose on to the RCZ?).

From certain angles in the red-on-silver spec of our test car, it resembles a giant plastic tongue draped fleshily atop a standard Mini recently employed as a bar stool by an elephant that’s let itself go a bit. You’ll have your own views on its looks: possibly strong and shouty views.

We will simply say this, though: after a few days with the Coupe, we developed a begrudging affection for its cartoonish lumpishness (but then again, we’ve always had a soft spot for the gurning Lancia Hyena, so take anything we say with a pinch of salt), but there was never a point at which its strange shapes suddenly clicked into place, never a moment when we thought, “Ah, so that’s what the designer was trying to do...”

So, yes, the Coupe is an unashamedly weird thing to look at, but at least it’s small. After a dubious venture into definitely-not-mini territory with the Countryman, this is Mini returning to its heartland: compact, front-drive, lightweight.

Only, the Coupe isn’t especially lightweight. In fact, despite being shorn of two seats, the JCW Coupe weighs 25kg more than its hatch cousin, thanks to a bunch of chassis reinforcements borrowed from the JCW convertible. Still, with a lower centre of gravity than the hatch, it’s billed as the most involving Mini yet. Let’s find out...

The roads of the North Yorkshire Moors are a chassis engineer’s nightmare. Narrow, surfaced with a grim patchwork of crudely stitched bitumen, endlessly buckled and cambered, they subject every aspect of a car’s suspension to a waterboarding-style interrogation. Threading along these unforgiving tracks requires a healthy dose of concentration and, if you want to make rapid progress, some mild bravery.

There’s no telling what you’ll find mid-corner: a devious pothole, a six-inch-high crease of tarmac, a pile of gravel or, most probably, a dopey sheep eyeing its impending death with baleful gloom. Climbing through scrubby pastures and riotous purple heather onto the lonely sweep
of Blakey Ridge, the Mini is indeed involving.

Then again, so is sharing a sauna with a family of tetchy scorpions. Stiffly sprung and prone to turbulent torque steer, its active spoiler bobbing cheerily up and down behind the rear screen, you wrestle this thing along a B-road rather than drive it.

The Mini is so responsive to mid-corner bumps that you’re forced to manically wind the steering on and off as you tackle a bend at speed, feeling for grip, scrabbling wildly to keep the nose aiming the right way.

In the TT, by contrast, you simply point the front end where you want to end up and let
the Audi’s forgiving damping deal with the rest. Our test car is equipped with Audi’s magnetic ride (a £1,175 option), and even in the sharpest setting, the TT – which, interestingly, weighs just a few kilos more than the smaller Mini – smooths out the Moors’ rumpled patchwork with a sophistication the Mini can’t match.

On paper, the Audi is the quickest car here, pipping the Coupe a couple of tenths to 62mph and the RCZ by an extraordinary second and a half, and it feels it, planting its power on these storm-sodden roads where the Mini frenziedly spins its tyres. The Audi makes a lovely noise, a crisp rasp that’s never intrusive or pantomime, but just steely enough to remind you that
you’re driving a proper sports car.

The RCZ offers up a more languid GT experience, these tight roads bringing out a softer, more placid character to the buttocky Peugeot. Though sharing much DNA with the Mini’s engine, it’s far less rev-hungry, ambling towards the red line where the Mini charges headlong at it with a turbo rasp and a flicker of the traction control.

Involving it may be, but, on the worst roads, the Mini’s incessant skittishness begins to grate, like a toddler replying “Why? Why? Why?” to every explanation you give. We’ve come to expect such fidgety behaviour from hot Minis, but more of a surprise is something else the Coupe shares with the hatch: its seating position.

Even with the seat ratcheted down to its very lowest point, you still sit on top of, rather than within, the Coupe, your ankles down below your knees, not out in front. It’s not terminally bad – the stock Mini has a decent driving position, and this is no worse – but as you slot comfily into the dark confines of the TT, cranking the seat lower and lower until your view through the windscreen is of nothing but sky and passing crows, you realise how much more hatch than coupe the Mini really is.

Unlike the RCZ. Its pedals aren’t quite so perfectly placed as the TT’s, but the Peugeot still cocoons you in deep, leathery, coupe comfort. With its classy detailing and shiny bits, the RCZ pushes into sharp focus how unoriginal the Mini’s cabin really is. Yes, its windscreen angles more steeply towards your forehead, but beyond that it’s all too familiar to anyone who’s spent time in the regular three-door Mini.

Though I’m sure the marketing men refer it to as a ‘core brand signature’ or some such nonsense, couldn’t Mini have ditched the giant central speedo for once? Not only does it serve no function as a speedometer unless you drive with your head tipped into the middle of the car, it also makes the cabin feel open and tall, rather than low and intimate.

Maybe we’re being too harsh on the Coupe. On the right road, it’s a fighty, frenzied ball
of fun. If you’re up for a scrap, of these three coupes it’s the Mini that will smear the widest smile across your face, chuntering and hissing as it slews cheerily down a country lane. As with the JCW hatch, you fight the wheel like a Pikes Peak hero, glutei tensed, waiting for the nose to make its next bid for hedgerow.

If you want a two-seater with Mini manners, and you can handle the whole helmet/baseball cap thing, you’ll love it. And, arguably it’s actually more practical than the hatch: no one has ever bought a three-door Mini for its usable rear seats, so why not give up any pretence of ever transporting more than a single passenger, and marvel in the luxury of being able to fit big pieces of fruit in the boot?

Matching the RCZ on price almost pound-for-pound, the Coupe undercuts the equivalent TT by some three grand. But the Audi is simply in a different league. Pugnacious though it is, this top-spec Coupe is too obviously a descendent of the basest Mini hatch, a car less than half the price. Where the Peugeot and Audi hide their donor organs under original designs, the Mini doesn’t feel special, different enough to justify its premium price.

Here’s the thing. An entry-spec Mini Coupe – especially one with a less divisive colour scheme – could be a cracker. The naturally aspirated 122bhp petrol Coupe starts at just over £16,000, undercutting the cheapest RCZ by more than five grand and the cheapest TT by over ten grand.

That car would go head-to-head with the Renault Wind and Abarth 500 rather than these cruiserweight coupes, a battle the Mini would come out of far better: we’ve always found the base-spec Mini ‘One’ hatch to be one of the most enjoyable, and the Coupe’s cut-and-paste cabin and vertiginous seating position wouldn’t be such an issue in a cheaper car. And let’s face it: spec the Mini tastefully, and it’d look veritably svelte next to the Wind. But in JCW form, the Coupe feels a leap too far for the humble Mini. Diverting though this car is, it doesn’t quite manage the hat trick.