It’s Sunday morning. The sun is shining, warm and bright. You’ve packed your wicker basket with gingham napkins, home made cakes and pastries, crustless finger sandwiches and lashings of ginger beer, slipped into your 1950s dress and petticoat, slid your ballet pumps on your feet and retrieved your straw hat from the top of the wardrobe – all you’ve left to do is throw the hamper in the boot and hit those country roads…
But doesn’t the perfect vintage picnic deserve the perfect vintage transport? Wouldn’t you feel far more in character stepping daintily from a classic car than from a battered Vauxhall Corsa?
The problems here are twofold. For one thing, no-one wants to hit quiet country roads in an unreliable car – you could end up stranded, and those pumps weren’t made for walking! Unfortunately, older cars are a little less reliable, as a rule than their modern counterparts. At the same time, modern cars just don’t cut the mustard in the stye department – sure they’re pretty enough in a modern way, but they certainly don’t match your shoes, handbag and picnic basket.
A used Mini is the only answer to your prayers.
The new generation Minis have maintained the classic styling that made them popular in the first place, with their cute, bubbly vintage look exterior changing only slightly to place the indicators within the headlamps on the wings, and to tidy up the grille for a shinier look. Meanwhile, their retro theme continues on the interior with toggle switches to control the heat and stereo, and a near-original reproduction dash complete with over-sized speedo taking up position centre stage. This car simply squeals visual vintage!
Yet this is coupled with some decent engines – the Used Mini 1.4 litre being the smallest and a bit rumbly (though therefore pretty accurate from a retro perspective), but the 118 bhp 1.6 litre being so far superior it’s worth the price increase, providing a smooth ride that will allow you to reapply your lipstick (in the passenger seat of course) without jolting it all over your face! The 1.6 litre achieves 0-62 in 7.1 seconds and hits top speeds of 140mph – which, with that speedo so prominent you can’t fail to miss!
Add to this the option for Cooper and Cooper S models, featuring power steering (and a power steering boost button should you invest in the Sports kit), aluminium mechanics, improved suspension, a new rear axle, harder springs, dampers and anti-roll bars and you’ve the full mechanical package. And while you’re choosing extra features why not consider the TLC package - £185 pays all your routine service costs for 5 years (or 50,000 miles).
When is comes to safety, you’ll struggle to find a supermini to match the Used Mini. It has a five star Euro NCAP crash-test rating for peace of mind, alongside stability control and front, side and full cabin-length airbags. From the security perspective, it offers all the features you’d expect from a BMW, and the new generation cars are 60mm longer and 18mm taller to meet modern safety standards. And with an extra 10 litres storage in the boot thanks to the size increase, not to mention more spacious rear seats thanks to cleverly sculpted front seats, you can really pack a punch with your picnic! You might even get a couple of chairs in, should a blanket not be good enough!
All this from a car which holds its residual value better than any other in its class? This really does make it the ultimate investment – perhaps even more so than those vintage cars.