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I owned a 2002 for 2 years, and replaced it with the wrx sti. Previous to the cooper S I owned a Audi s4 (2000). The mini felt down on power from the audi (and of course the 300hp subie) but wow what a handler. The audi would lean and grumble about tight corners, the mini (especially when new, within the first 10K miles) would handle on rails.
The thing I noticed is that the mini handling got sloppy compared to when new after 25K miles. I wonder if it was tires, bushings or shocks, but it was much less chrisp in my opinion.
Mini Cooper S with about 50 more HP == the bomb IMO. I was leasing, so I never considered any mods, but for less than 2500 you can get a sizable HP bump (200 crank hp over 163 fact).
I would definitely own one again, I do miss it over my subaru, though nothing beats 300hp/300ftlb tq and adjustable split AWD, especially with the NE winters.
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