Road Test: Mini Hatchback 1.6 One 3dr

The name for the entry level Mini doesn't sound like it should have caused much head scratching, but rumour has it that BMW employed a squillion's worth of consultants for a year to generate thousands of potential monikers. And they came up with Mini One.

Tutting about all this, I sat in what I expected to be an expensive and unfulfilling niche marketing exercise. There's been so much 'heritage and glory days' hype, I thought BMW was playing a Jedi mind trick on a world desperate to relive a time when cars were worse than we remember them. Without the razzle-dazzle of a Cooper badge, I reckoned the Mini One was about to expose the whole charade.

Well, that lasted for about a minute because, even in its basic form, there's no mistaking the quality of the Mini. It's so grown-up for its size and price that the rivals in its class might as well start making little white flags.

Even with the range's least sporty suspension, and with the least sparky powerplant, it still returns the sort of drive that already looks like the bargain of the century. The chassis is stiff enough to take on tricky corners at even trickier speeds and there's so much grip that without realising it you keep driving fast and faster.

Bend after bend it arcs through with such agility you're tempted to get out and check the boot badge. Much effort has been taken to make the steering as direct as possible and the result is a finely weighted rack that darts the nose just where you want it.

But the really clever part is the ride. Cars this size can be fun to drive but there's usually a payback in the form of spinal compression. Not any more. The little Mini rides like a big car.

The One has a modest 90bhp four-cylinder engine. Taking 10.5 seconds to reach 60mph from a standstill is nothing to go mad about and neither is the top speed of 115mph. Building up any sort of pace takes a lot of neck-wringing but, because it's capable of carrying that pace through corners, it's much handier than the stats suggest.

The blissfully smooth and jabby five-speed manual gearbox helps, and it's worth paying an extra 50 quid for the steering column-mounted rev-counter. Nothing about this car is mundane.

And no longer will the supermini driver suffer from motorway throat; at higher revs the noise is so well damped that you can easily have a conversation without the veins in your neck bulging. And the only thing rattling in the well built cabin will be your nerve. The Mini is smaller than it appears in pictures but there's barnfuls of space inside. It's got four intelligent airbags and so many safety gadgets it probably won't let you out on your own at night.

Quite how the competition will react to such an upstart is a mystery. So far, it's Mini One - rest of the world, nil.