Road Test: Mini Hatchback 1.6 Cooper 3dr

The new Mini was first unveiled nearly four years ago at the Frankfurt motorshow, so we've had plenty of time to get used to it. While there's room for cynicism about such nods to the past, I simply appreciate the fact that the new Mini has oodles of character, is cute and doesn't want to be staid or boring - when so many cars still do.

The only body style for now is a three-door hatchback, with a 'woody' estate, a pick-up and a cabriolet all rumoured to follow within the next couple of years. Lift the tailgate and there's plenty of room; while inside, in the front at least, there's seemingly shed-loads of space. The windscreen slopes off into the distance away from the driver while the seats are large, supportive and adjust in all conceivable directions. The rears are a little more compact, however, and able to cope with a couple of six footers only if they keep their legs scrunched up and their elbows neatly folded in.

Back to the front then. Before me is one of the most bananas dashboards to be found in any car right now. In Coopers like ours, the rev counter sits in a pod mounted on the steering column, while offset in the centre of the facia you'll find a speedo the size of a Frisbee. Our car has the naffly-titled 'Pepper' options pack, which means that the interior is largely finished in sparkly silver plastic and also gains storage nets behind the seats, a six-speaker stereo and a set of foglamps. Further choices of interior finish are dark, anthracite-coloured plastics or - bleugh - wood trim, including a wood-rimmed steering wheel.

This is the first time anyone has been let out on the road in the proper finished article, so the engine on our car has covered barely 200 miles. But, even with some running-in still to do, it pulls fairly strongly, being a little gutless to begin with, but then really picking up and dishing out its full 115bhp as it whizzes on past 4,000rpm.

There's plenty of easily accessible overtaking punch to be unearthed, while the essential figures of 0-62mph in 9.2 seconds and a 124mph top whack prove that this is a modest, if not screamingly rapid, little hottish hatch. The upcoming supercharged 163bhp Cooper S should sort that situation out satisfactorily.

Back to our Mini Cooper and at a cruise it's already feeling so much more sophisticated than you'd expect from a small car like this, such supermini alternatives as a Toyota Yaris T Sport tending to thrash raucously along at a 70mph-or-so trot whereas this Mini remains really quite remarkably quiet. It's economical too: a drive-by-wire throttle dishes out the unleaded more accurately than a conventional accelerator and the electro-hydraulic power steering means the engine doesn't need to put in the extra effort to drive a separate pump. These factors work together to allow a healthy quoted combined fuel economy figure of 42.1mpg.

Matching up well with the engine, the five-speed manual gearchange is also exceedingly slick in its action, needing just the tiniest of flicks to execute a change of ratios.

Indeed, drive gently and this is an easy car to get along with. Visibility is generally good, the driving position is still ideal even with a couple of hours of driving behind us, and the clutch and gearchange are refreshingly light in their operation. Find a few hairy twists, though, and the steering proves to be weighty, yet only moderately quick in its action. BMW's press release bumf talks of the Mini having 'go-kart type driving feel', which might have been the truth with any old Mini - even our old banger - but isn't truthfully the case here. It might be so if we were talking about a Ford Puma, the current benchmark for driving entertainment in a small front-wheel drive car like this. The Puma has very quick, crisp steering and a nimble chassis, but on the downside it can be uncompromisingly solidly sprung when it's asked to tackle a scabbily-surfaced road.

The Mini, on the other hand, is very different - though over a longer run it's just as enjoyable in its own way. Once more it feels like a bigger car than it is. Though it lacks that final increment of sharpness and communication that makes the titchy Ford coupe such a memorable car to take for a brief blat, the Mini is generally the more composed, upmarket-feeling vehicle of the two. It's highly agile by most standards and is also unexpectedly relaxing when you are less in the mood for swiftly hacking along.

I guess the new Mini would stick to the tarmac with even greater eagerness if BMW hadn't fitted comparatively skinny 175mm-wide hard-compound tyres as standard, a decision likely to have been taken to lower rolling resistance and shave off a few extra nought-point-somethings of an mpg from the fuel consumption figures. We're also told that the Mini One, when it comes, will be less athletically set up than the Cooper, sitting 8mm higher off the ground, lacking a rear anti-roll bar and having a slimmeranti-roll bar fitted at the front.

The Mini drives just like a far larger Beemer that has been shrunk. More than that, the high levels of equipment and excellent all-round build quality make it feel like a car costing in the region of twice the £10,300 that will be asked for the Mini One, or the £11,600 that our Mini Cooper will set you back.

Up until now, all that would buy you was a well-specced Corsa or Fiesta - neither carrying the kudos of being built by BMW or being nearly as distinctive to look at.

Space requirements permitting, the new Mini would be a fine thing to live with on a day-to-day basis, no matter what type of driving you tend to indulge in. It's compact, economical, relaxing on the motorway and yet can prove to be plenty exciting enough when you want it to be.