4 replies to this topic

[Dog]

I have been wondering,

are coopers really THAT good...?

The reason I ask is, I am getting a stage 3 engine 1293 for my pickup, and well that will hopefully end up with about 80-100BHP at wheels (I think)

And well if people can do this to a normal 1275... whats the ponit in having a cooper?

is it just the name? or whats does a cooper have over say a 1275 GT (other than injection... even though carb is better IMO)

Now I am not trying to cause a fight or anything like that... just a humble qustion :cool:

[Dan]

Modern Coopers are pants.

The oringinal Mini Cooper and Cooper S were both very good cars with a lot of tuning advantages over the standard car. Then they stopped making them and introduced the 12175GT (actually this was available at the same time as the last of the Cooper S models) which was nowhere near as good as the original Cooper S that had sadly been de-tuned over the years until it was eventually not that much better than standard. Then they re-introduced the Cooper badge around 89 or so and the first cars they made under the name were quite good. Again they had some different tuning to normal cars and they had better cooling and stuff to go with it but once again the breed was slowly and gradually cross bred with the standard Mini until by the time the twin point was introduced in 1996 the only difference was the badging itself and the seat covers. So basically a twin point Cooper is no different at all from a twin point Mini sadly and ultimately it's just a special edition.

Some Coopers are great, some are just normal Mini's, depends which year you are looking at.

[Cir-clipalot]

Then they re-introduced the Cooper badge around 89 or so and the first cars they made under the name were quite good. Again they had some different tuning to normal cars and they had better cooling and stuff to go with it but once again the breed was slowly and gradually cross bred with the standard Mini

Was this when a limited run of only 1000 or so coopers were made by john cooper garages in worthing, and then when they were successful they became a normally available model?....

[Dan]

Almost, JCG made a run of around 1000 special upgrade packs which were available from Rover dealers as an option to the Racing/Flame/Checkmate special editions (among other Minis available at that time) and the converted cars were fully covered by the Rover warranty unlike tuning kits from other companies. Most of these kits were sold to Japan. The kit came in a huge wooden chest which was made to be the right size so fit on the Mini's rear seat and contained a cylinder head, inlet and exhaust manifolds, twin HS2 carbs, rockers, plugs, gaskets, stickers and badges. There was also an exhaust but that wouldn't fit in the box.

When this kit proved to be incredibly popular Rover worked with JKD to design and build the RSP (Rover Special Products) Cooper which was a severaly limited edition car rushed out in next to no time in order to meet demand. When this car sold out almost overnight Rover realised they were onto a winner and decided to launch a new Mini Cooper model in the next model year.

Of course this was all good news for John Cooper as he was able to get a new contract out of it. The original Mini Coopers built by BMC were built under a contract which saw John getting just £2.00 per car as a royalty (this huge fee is why British Leyland killed off the Mini Cooper in the first place, that's how tight fisted they were). The new contract was a lot better for him and he contributed quite a lot of input into the Mini's future from then on.

[Dog]

So if you tuned a mini into a 1293, and put disks on... this would be almost a cooper?


But then again, if you restored two cars of date... the cooper would be ebtter I surpose...

Thanks Dan