David Mitchell On Climate Change
Photos by Julius Keller.
Yesterday I went and test drove Mini’s new ‘eco’ car at it’s launch in Melbourne. To be honest, I like the guys at Mini so much I would struggle to say anything bad about it however I got lucky cause there isn’t much wrong with this little car. Check below the cut for more photos and the full story (including how I managed to TRIPLE the average fuel consumption of other writers on the day!). Yew!
I’m no environmentalist. Sure, I’m concerned that we might be killing the world but I’m not of the apocalyptic mindset that would put a smile on the greenies faces. I have good friend who put it best when he said, “hippies won’t be happy until we all drive cars so boring we wish they still ran on petrol so we could gas ourselves in the garage.” Pretty right. What does concern me is the price of fuel and the fact that my current whip drinks juice like it’s running out (Oh, wait…). That’s where I got excited over this new Mini D. The Mini D is a turbo diesel with several neat fuel saving measures that mean, when driven correctly, you can actually achieve 3.9 litres of fuel for every 100 kilometers traveled. If you can stick to this, you will get over 1000k’s out of a tank of fuel which, at today’s price would mean $46 could get you from Sydney to Melbourne… beat that Jetstar. The car has a mechanism that shuts the engine down when you are stopped at lights or in traffic. The engine re-starts the minute you depress the clutch. This is a slightly unusual thing to get used to but no worse than the lag you get from the Prius when you press the accelerator. The car’s common rail technology means better combustion in the engine while using less fuel and combined with under body aerodynamics, lightweight components, volume flow regulated oil pumps and switchable water pumps means you’re going to use less fuel. But the biggest fuel saver would have to be the display which indicates the optimum gear for fuel efficiency. On a long, lonely drive I can see this being a great challenge to maintain.
Of course trying to achieve 3.9 litres would have made for a rather boring test drive so when I stood with the Mini reps and checked what the last journo had achieved (around the morning’s average of 4.3 litres per 100k’s) I set my self a challenge. I took off down Russell St. along Flinders St to Queen St. Up to the Vic Markets and back to the parking lot. There was a lot of traffic around so I didn’t get to test the top speed (195kph apparently) but I had quite a few opportunities to try the car from a standing start. Despite the engine-cut-out-fuel-saving-thingy I still had the wheels squealing up Queen Street – there honestly isn’t a massive change from the normal petrol Mini, certainly nothing you would notice on your average drive. Upon returning to the Mini crew, I found that I had managed an average fuel consumption of 11.7 litres per 100kms over the test drive! I was very proud. Still, the car can easily achieve the lower fuel consumption levels and on an average (calm) drive would out perform other comparable diesels.
Rick asked me the question “why would I buy this over a Prius?” That’s an easy one to answer. The Prius doesn’t drive like a car should. There’s no feeling in what you’re doing – no sense of being a driver. It lags during acceleration, breaks too heavily and has no feeling through the steering wheel. Being a turbo diesel, the Mini maintains that feeling of being a driver while achieving some savings for both the environment and the hip pocket. Not to mention the price difference between the two.
What would you pay for this? What do you think is reasonable? Considering that other normal (and far more boring) small turbo diesel cars sit around the $29,000 mark (Holden Astra, Peugeot 207, etc.) and a basic Prius will set you back near to $40,000 plus the fact that this car is backed by Mini’s design team and BMW’s engineering, I had round figure of $45,000 in my head. Nowhere near it. This one comes in at $33,000 – although I’m sure the people at Mini would hate me using the word, I would say it’s a bargain.
It’s hard to give more info from just a quick whip around in the car however I think this car is the perfect ‘package’ for someone like me who spends 99% of their time in the car driving through the city. It’s both fun and fuel efficient (not something you hear very often) and is reasonably priced. You can get more info on the car over the the Mini site here – thanks to Lucy at Mini for inviting me along and Julius for shooting the photos.
Please refrain from using the term yew! Just a small ask….
Citroen c3 hdi gets 4.4l/100kmh, for $24,000. Maybe not as cool, but it is $10,000 cheaper. And with the options that are on the one in the photos, your looking at about a 40- 45 thousand dollar car…. Ha bargain!
Good luck driving it in the snow.
Dane… I’m not one to judge but a lot of my friends have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on French built cars (kidding). If I wanted to go all out on the detail I could have included the C3, Clio, Smart, Focus, etc. All have good and bad points but I still think the Mini D is a great buy. I mean, would you pay $29k for a basic Astra CDTi when this is $4k more?
And God – are you talking Australian snow conditions? These were originally designed in a country that has worse weather conditions on an average summer day. Ahahaha.
It’s hard to really compare the mini with other cars cause it’s kind of in it’s own class. But if you have to compare it with something, it has to be compared with other small cars, not astra’s or prius’ which are larger cars. And by the way the price of this mini is 33,750, which makes it closer to 5000 dollars more than a Astra CDTi. I have always liked the mini, I just think it costs too much for such a small car. A yaris or jazz costs half the price. And you can get a commadore for $1500 less.
I agree, the Mini is in its own class – Frank Stephenson and his team did an amazing job when they brought it back. I’m comparing it to the Prius based on its ‘greeness’ not it’s size which, because of how the Mini D is being pitched, is a justified comparison. If you could buy more turbo diesel small cars (like the Jazz and the Yaris) then that would be a fair comparison – but you cant.
I understand what you’re saying but I think the ideal comparison would be the 1 Series BMW. Made by the same company, both small cars in a similar format – the 1 Series comes in at over $45k for a basic diesel (I know you get a few additional extras). But doesn’t that make the Mini look well priced? In the same way that comparing it to a Honda Jazz makes it look poorly priced.
In the end, having driven most of these cars, at this stage I would probably opt to buy the Mini if I was looking for that sort of car.
What about you Dane, in that price bracket and format, which one would you buy?
Yeah, I would love to drive one of those up hotham in a foot of snow…..
Not sure how right I am but if I were going to buy a car in this size range, I would be looking at the Mini or the VW Golf TDi. There’s no way it’d be a Prius, Astra or any of the other small cars that have been mentioned.
Okay, here’s some of the cars you can compare with the mini D 1.6 litre, 34,000
Citroen C3 HDi 1.6 litre, 23,000
VW Polo TDi 1.9 litre, 23,000
Peugeot 207 HDi 1.6 litre 29,000
Fiat 500 JTD 1.3 litre, 26,000
These cars are all similar in size (very small), engine size and are all diesel and from europe.
You can not compare it to the;
Prius, it’s a hybrid, medium to large car
Astra, it’s a medium car
Golf is too big
And BMW 1 series is a whole different ball game, larger car 2 litre engine and it comes with a certain amount of prestege.
The mini does not have prestege, it has quirkiness.
Now lets get this straight i enjoyed your article, and there is a lot good to say about the mini in all it’s forms, but well priced is not one of them. And justifying it by comparing it to cars that don’t compare is wrong. It’s like saying a 100 dollar lift ticket to ride Buller is a bargain when compared to a day of heli boarding.
The mini is over priced, but if you want a quirky, eccentric car that not many people have (because it’s over priced) then it’s perfect.
To answer your question, I could never own a car that small because I snowboard and surf and need room to fit things in, so if I had 34,000 to spend on a car I would spend it on a decent size wagon. But if forced I could maybe get away with an Audi A3.
A free day of being in a roadtest as a “journo” and most probably a few beers or maybe champers for Dave afterwards and all of a sudden there is a obligation to spruke the benfits of the Mini… driving around town, yes great ilttle car, but as a snow/surf mag, the application for most of your readers would be very limited, I wonder how you would rate the mini (pic is of a Cooper S) in a real comparo, anyway I hope you had a enjoyable day and because of your efforts you might get invited back for another freebie!
OR>>> You could spend 35 grand on a couple of year old hilux sr5 turbo diesel and have a pimpin truck that you can actually do things with and not look like a homo.
Wow Des,
Dave works his arse off for a magazine that doesn’t pay him anything near what he’s worth, so if he has the opportunity to go have half an hour of fun instead of packaging up 400 magazines and stickers for subscribers purely so he can write something for you to read on the internet, I say good on him.
However having said that, I’m not sure what kind of operation you think Dave and I are running here, but if either of us can get a free drink and/or drive of something fast, we’re not going to hesitate jamming it down your eyeballs if it means we might get an invite back. This is the last place I would have thought we’d get called out on automobile journalistic integrity.
Rick.
Wow Rick!
dont get so sensitve, if you read my comment I asked how the mini would go in a real comparo, then I said I hope you had an enjoyable day and that because of your efforts you might get invited back for another!,
Perks of the trade, nobody denies you this, we all would love to do it, and I hope you got a beer out of it, Anyway Rick… I was having a joke…..
No problem Des, I just thought I’d stick up for Dave, I’ve been making him work weekends so I can play on my new motorbike… And it’s a Friday so… Umm… Dave, I’m gonna’ need you to come in tomorrow… yeaah…
what bike you get rick? i just bought a postie bike!
Fixie… what a hipster
ben your bike is awesome!
but whats even better is the fact you dont have a licence! haha
i will have my licence after june 1st! then i can dink you to buller on it.
Got a Honda ’77 CB400F. I’m working on it right now. I might even ‘blog’ about it if I can get it started!
guess what happens to these cars after the show?
straight to the trash compactor, shame really
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