Confession #27: Maxed-out on Minis

2002 Mini Cooper (BMW Group photo)

A disclaimer: I’ve loved the new Mini since I was a boy. I remember being a 10-year-old, rushing to my mailbox and pulling out an Automobile Magazine with a green, then-new Mini Cooper on the cover. It was love from day one.

Anytime a new one passed me on the freeway I started drooling. Any chance I got I took a ride in one. When my friend one day let my drive his Cooper S, I literally leapt at the chance – and nearly got a speeding ticket in the process. I might have been able to swing getting one as my first car – instead of the Saab I love/hate so dearly – had the insurance rates not nearly sent my mother into a panic attack. How do parents give their 16-year-old boys brand-new Subaru WRXs?

Confession #26: Get in and go for a drive

California State Highway 1 near Bixby Creek Bridge,
Big Sur, Calif. (Google Earth image) 

Easily one of my favorite things about driving is finding a good road without a lot of traffic, on a clear day with nothing else on your mind.

Trust me, it’s intoxicating.

Even though I lean towards the environmentalist perspective that we should all drive more economically and buy smaller, more appropriately sized cars, I don’t tell people it’s partially because we should be saving fuel for drives that aren’t to anywhere or really for anything other than the undiluted thrill of driving.

Finding a good road for this is a never-ending quest. Like a tough addiction, you can be happy with a favorite stretch of pavement for a while, until it becomes too familiar. Then you go out looking for something stronger, more thrilling. It could eventually consume you. Be careful.

The car for the job really matters. It has to be engaging on some level, meaning the Hertz special Ford Fusion isn’t a good fit. But get something that’s only powerful and not an able handler, and you’re again asking for trouble.

Confession #23: It doesn't have to be a supercar to be cool

Forbes recently published a list of "Cars that will make you cool." To the surprise of probably no one, they're all outrageously expensive things most people couldn't afford in a lifetime, even if they sold some vital organs.

No question, cars like the Spyker C8 Aileron and Ferrari FF are cool, but part of their appeal comes from the fact that they're exotic and unattainable by most. Therefore, are there new cars that are cool and aren't all high-cost, low-practicality sports cars?

2012 Fiat 500 Sport (Fiat USA photo)

Fiat 500: Small cars are cool again because rapidly rising gas prices are making everyone regret purchasing lumbering vehicles that drink too much unleaded gas. Until now, if you wanted a small four-seat car with some style, the default choice was a Mini. And that was great, because the Mini Cooper S in particular is a fantastic car to drive, seats four (or two in much greater comfort) and offers decent luggage space with the rear seats folded. Best of all, it's perfect for parking and maneuvering tight city gaps. While a Smart ForTwo is better in both regards, you could use a Mini as your only car. But what makes the Fiat cool is that there aren't a million of them on the street. Until the 500 starts selling by the hundred thousand, it's cool because it's a great alternative to the Mini, without being a Mini.

Confession #18: Small Cars Part 2 – Is this a country for super-small SUV?

2011 Mini Cooper S All4 Countryman
(Mini USA photo)

I walked past a Mini Countryman the other day. It was a strange sight in a snow-covered parking lot in Boston, mostly filled by weather-beaten small domestics, Saabs, Subarus, Volvos, and the occasional Audi A5 or Q5 that has somehow managed to stay cleaner than everything else.

There are even some standard Minis parked there and even then, the Countryman doesn’t blend in quite right, and not because this example looked pristine under the dim sunlight of a freezing January afternoon. It’s not small like a Mini or even another small hatch. But compared to the muddy Ford Explorer planted a few spaces away, it’s miniscule, no pun intended.

2010 Volkswagen Golf 3-door
(Volkswagen photo)

What never quite clicked with the Countryman and me was this: You buy a Mini because it’s compact, and you buy a small SUV/crossover either because it’s smaller than a big one or it’s all you can afford.

The Countryman is small. But at more than four meters (or 13 feet) long, it’s about the length of a Volkswagen Golf. And it’s at least 12 inches longer than the normal Mini, so it’s firmly into the “normal size” of a modern car.

Is it the normal length of an SUV? Hardly.

Confession #14: Small is in, whether we like it or not

OK, I have some sympathy for product planners who have some pretty cumbersome schedules.

Just when gas prices reached around $4.50 per gallon in the summer of 2008 – months before the economy crashed and burned – people were scrambling to sell their SUVs and V8s that took two credit card swipes at the pumps to fill. The same people took huge losses on trade-in values too when they swapped them in for things like the VW Jetta, Mini, Smart, Ford Focus, and especially the Honda Civic, which became the best-selling car in the US for a few months that year.

Fuel prices have precipitously fallen since then and are still mostly in the low-to-mid $3 range. But a wave of small cars automakers, hurried into production when they thought gas prices were going to keep escalating, have arrived.

Ford launched the Fiesta over the summer after a year of social media fanfare and teasing customers with the European version of the car.

Granted, Ford watered the now-Mexican-built Fiesta hatchback and introduced an ungainly looking four-door to the mix, but reviews have been fairly positive. What’s more, the company packed it with toys like a dual-clutch transmission (like the one VW has been putting in their cars) and the SYNC voice-control-Bluetooth software.

Chevy is doing something similar with the Civic-Corolla slayer Cruze. No longer is the General going cheap with small cars. Most versions come with a six-speed automatic and turbo 4-cylinder that gets around 40 MPG. Critics are raving about the interior quality, some, like The New York Times’ James Cobb, say it could be best-in-class. And remember, that class includes the former interior beauty queen Jetta.