Hey guys, just thought I would tell you about my experiances at the weekend and see what you think. My best mate now works for mini, as one of the perks he gets a company car. He is currently driving one of the clubmans the really ugly things. The one he has though is the S version (turbo charged 180 brake) He loves driving fast as we all do and at the weekend we all went out for a nice sunday drive. We naturally had several races lol and to my shock I only just beat him, I really had to give it everything to get past him and he had four people in the car. I just wantded to post something to see what you guys had to say? I love the S and not just its performance but it made me think is it as quick as I think it is.

 

If you drive the S above 6 grand you'll beat most things. Get caught below and youve only 150bhp. Theres a nack to driving the S, If you set off from a standing start above 6k you should beat the clubman s very easily.

 

What were you expecting?

You don't just rip away from other cars despite what you may think is a big bhp advantage - there are more factors to it than that.

For me the S is fast enough to overtake traffic, but slow enough to enjoy on the road.

If you get your kicks from being thrown into the seat, you need to get another car

 

It's not that quick .. and with revs (not torque) it doesn't feel quick either.

 

I think everyone who likes cars enjoys the feeling of being kicked into ya seat! All I'm saying is I expected a two seater roadster with 240 brake to have a little bit of an edge over a mini hatchback.

 

The S is a heavy car, low powered off cam (so 0-20mph is very slow) and RWD transmittion losses are higher than FWD.

The Turbo Mini is probably about the same weight (if not lighter), the turbo will kick in for more power lower in the rev range and for longer.

I'd have thought the mini would be 155/160 whp .. and the S 185/190 whp.

 

what sort of roads? conditions? Where the S seems particularly quick to me is on tight twisty roads where you are hardly out of 2nd and the handling really makes a difference. Straightline speed is certainly not why I bought the car, show it a mountain pass and you will understand. (on a dry day )

 

grins/mile factor - s2000 hands down!
I've just come from a 320hp BMW M Roadster, and to be honest when the S is in the VTech, it doesn't feel too far off the pace. Over x-country, the S would eat it alive and you'd have a damn sight more fun doing it also.
I bet it's a similar story with the mini.

 

Don't get me wrong I LOVE the S and would not change it! And yes you have a good point this was mostly straight line driving, I will have to skin round the bends next time lol

 

Both cars have similar horsepower so its no surprise you're only a little bit faster.

I did some "scientific" comparisons based on data from track challenge.com where I converted the incremental times of various cars into distances travelled in that time.

For example, below is a comparison of an E39 M5, an E46 M3 and a 3.0i Z4 with SMG against an S2000, over a 15 second time period (roughly a quarter of a mile). The M3 pulls out a 50m lead, the M5 40m and the Z4 is just behind.

40 or 50m does not look that much from the seat of a car.