KNOCKOUT ROUND BBADC 2019
28 AUGUST 2019 AUTOCAR.CO.UK 45
Price £33,395
Engine 4 cyls, 1984cc,
turbocharged, petrol
Power 296bhp at 5300-6500rpm
Torque 295lb ft at 2000-5200rpm
Gearbox 7-spd dual-clutch
automatic
Kerb weight 1557kg
0-62mph 4.9sec
Top speed 155mph (governed)
Economy 32.1-33.6mpg
CO 2 , tax band na
SEAT LEON CUPRA 300 ST
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The Abarth is amusingly out of its
depth but engaging to hustle and
as quick as you’d want it to be
a
Is there any more to the Abarth?
I think so, but maybe I’m a softer
soul than my colleagues. Either
way, despite the indirect steering
and hopeless pedal positioning,
it’s already my guilty pleasure of
this test. You can’t entirely disable
the electronic stability control,
presumably because something with
s uc h h i g h g r ip le v e l s (it ’s w e a r i n g
Pirelli P Zero tyres), narrow tracks
and a tiny wheelbase can quickly
snap round on itself, but it’ll still play
all right. You might not notice it on the
road because the dampers seem to hit
bedrock out of nowhere and the ride
therefore becomes unpredictable too
often, but through quicker corners
on t r a c k , t he l it t le A ba r t h a dop t s a
slither of yaw on a trailing brake and
then develops heroic traction thanks
to the limited-slip differential.
Ultimately, it’s fast but f lawed and, as
road tester Davis dryly opines, best
experienced in small doses.
Among the list of contestants
at Junior Handling Day 2019, it’s
impossible to consider the Abarth
without also contemplating its
closest rival in terms of size, power
and layout. So would we take the
l at e s t M i n i Joh n C o op e r Work s
over the Italian? We’ll get to that
in a moment, but you’d expect a
mo de r n M i n i t o do w e l l.
In the meantime, the new JCW
isn’t particularly new at all. Its
turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder
engine still makes 228bhp but nowc ompl ie s w it h W LT P e m i s sion s
regulations, and that’s it. Ours has
a manual gearbox, three doors and
brake-actuated torque-vectoring
instead of a limited-slip differential.
It a l s o ge t s i nde p e nde nt r e a r
suspension, whereas the Abarth
makes do with a torsion beam.
Perceived quality? Loads. Pace?
Poi s e? Ple nt y of t ho s e , t o o. A nd w ho
wouldn’t fall for the sitting-on-the-
front-axle, pillbox-style view out of
the windscreen? Up on the mountain,
your first few corners with the
Mini are a breath of fresh air,
because the direct steering feeds
into the sense of conviction you get
from instinctively knowing exactly
where on the road each corner
of this small car is at any given
moment. Confidence builds with the
immediacy of direction changes and
as the firm but supple damping gets
to work – and then you hit a wall.
Not an actual wall. “It’s another
f a s t M i n i t h at t a k e s it s e l f a sh a de t o o
seriously,” says Saunders in a manner
that conveys an amusingly sincere
degree of disappointment. “It makesall the right noises and does most of
the right things, but it doesn’t do the
one thing you expect a mega-Mini to
do in this company, which is to cash
in on its size and out-handle its rivals.”
On Llandow’s mostly smooth
surface, the Mini’s surprising
lack of mojo becomes all the more
apparent. It hints at the right kinds of
movements – the nose biting hard ◊