2002 Mini Cooper S

It's a lot heavier than it looks. The new Mini Cooper S may be shorter than the 1,808-lb Geo Metro, but it weighs 2,678 lbs. That's more than a Toyota Celica GT-S or a Ford Focus. It's also way more than I can push. Although my Portuguese is limited to asking for beer and bathroom, Manuel and his two friends get the message and help.

It doesn't work.

An hour ago, this seemed like a good idea. We had only five hours to drive and photograph the new Mini Cooper S and it had been raining for days. We were starting to panic, but right before sunset, the clouds parted. That's when we saw, it. Our salvation. At the base of a cliff was a deserted beach with crashing surf, and quaint, Portuguese boardwalks. Even the Portuguese sky turned for the better, boiling with clouds and sun and purple Jesus light-just the stuff the camera loves.

"Let's shoot it on the beach," I say, as if it's an original idea.

"Yeah," says ace lensman Bidrawn, as if he'd never shot a car on a beach before. "It'll look great, you'll love it."

Note to self: Always bring at least one smart person on a photo shoot.

The Mini is small and low, but its wheels are shoved all the way to the corners, eliminating any overhang. This makes it surprisingly easy to bounce the little thing down the dirt road that leads to this picturesque Portuguese beach.

By the way, we're in Portugal, if you haven't already picked that up.

In Europe, the original Mini is an icon. Playing off this status, the new Mini, which has been on sale for several months, is already wildly successful there. Driving the car around the outskirts of Lisbon proved the impact of the Mini's curb appeal. Other drivers stare, children point, women swoon. Portuguese women. But you have to wonder how Americans, most of whom have probably never seen a Mini in person, will react.

Volkswagen may be able to offer a lesson here. In Europe, where the history of the original Beetle is far less pleasant than our own air-cooled memories of peace, love and weed, New Beetle sales are comparatively soft. Context is everything when you're selling nostalgia.

Luckily, the Mini Cooper S has a lot more going for it than nostalgia. It has a supercharger. An Eaton roots blower and a small, air-to-air intercooler cram a surprising 11.7 psi into the Mini's 1.6-liter iron block, resulting in a claimed 163 hp and 155 lb-ft of torque. Compression is down from 10.6:1 on the naturally aspirated Mini Cooper to a boost-friendly 8.3:1, suggesting to those of us with a penchant for overkill that far more boost is possible. Power below 2000 rpm is unexciting. Above 2000 rpm the blower is in its sweet spot. Midrange power is healthy, and the blower whine is intoxicating. Gearing is on the tall side, though, making power delivery a little more mature than we might hope for in our world where every traffic light is a drag race.

This gearing comes from the same Getrag six-speed used in the SVT Focus. The Getrag box uses a compact dual layshaft design that's critical to squeezing it into the Mini's tiny engine bay. Where a conventional six speed has an input and output shaft each with six gears, the Getrag box has two output shafts, with each input gear driving two differently sized output gears. This cuts the length of the shafts almost in half.

Still, with six gears, a supercharger, intercooler, air conditioning and ABS crammed under the hood, there's no room left for a battery. The battery in the Cooper S sits under the floor of the trunk, where it improves weight distribution anyway. Of course, that's where the spare tire in the Mini Cooper is stashed, so the Cooper S is fitted with run-flat tires and a warning system that watches the wheel speed sensors for the slight difference in rolling speed that occurs when a tire loses pressure.

Without a spare, of course, you don't need a jack. This is a problem when the oil pan is sitting on the sand and the front tires have dug nice holes to spin in. A jack would make it a lot easier to get a piece of driftwood under the tire.

Manuel, unlike most of the Portuguese we met, is completely unaffected by Mini mania. He's far more fascinated by the situation than the car itself. "I have a car," he says, "but I don't drive it on the beach."

Thank you. I'm an idiot. Can I borrow your jack?

Fifteen minutes with the jack and we've moved the car two feet. Doing the math, it will take 13 hours to get off the beach. We've already been awake for 29 hours. Manuel calls the fire department.

We did get a few hours to flog the Mini before the photographic inspiration hit, and it was good. It's not the power that's most striking, but the steering. With a super-quick 13:1 steering gear and the Mini's short wheelbase, it's delightfully quick, and precise enough that I can confidently hang a tread block or two off the inside edge of the pavement. Surprisingly, the handling character is similar to the original Mini. The car follows the front tires obediently- this doesn't seem to be a car you slide around.

Then again, it doesn't exactly understeer either. There's far more grip than you'd expect, and there was limited room to explore the surprisingly high handling limits, what with all the pointing Portuguese children and swooning Portuguese women. We'll know better when we get it on our own roads in a few months.

Luckily, the interior doesn't mimic the original Mini nearly as much as the handling. In place of the old Mini's fetal driving position, the new car has room to stretch out. My 36-inch inseam still doesn't justify putting the seat all the way back, and there's plenty of helmet room, at least without a sunroof. The only tight spot is over the clutch pedal, where even with driving shoes, a size 10 1/2 can't stand up. Those with well-endowed walkers will have to lift their whole leg to release the clutch. The interior design, materials and overall quality feel make it obvious BMW is behind this car. There's a sense of solidity inside the car, a feeling that no matter how much sand you track into the carpets, the interior will hold up well.

In Portugal, the fire department uses four-wheel-drive Nissan Patrols, unstoppable rock crawlers that can go almost anywhere. Even a Patrol sinks into the sand trying to pull a beached Mini, though. Just when we think it's finally over, the fireman gives up and calls a tow truck.

Both the 115-hp Mini Cooper and the Cooper S will be on sale by the time you read this, with the supercharged S starting at $19,850-$3,000 more than the base car. Odds are you'll pay a bit more if you want one any time soon. A total of 20,000 Minis are slated for the United States this year, but the waiting lists are long. If you do get your hands on one, stay off the beach.