To get a car so soon after launch we had to sacrifice choosing the spec ourselves and take what was offered. The one thing we did ask for was that it came with the 'Chili' pack (΂£1000) which meant ours would have the sports suspension and 16in wheels rather than the standard 15in items fitted to Coopers. The pack transforms the feel of the Mini and makes the standard set-up feel rather soggy in comparison. Air-con was also fitted, along with a glass roof and leather seats, upping the price of our car to ΂£14,550 rather than the wallet-friendly ΂£11,600 headline figure for a standard car.

In between the recall for potentially explosive fuel tanks and several attempts by the dealer to make the fuel gauge read full (it never did) it didn't take us long to get smitten with the driving experience. When the Mini arrived there was a Lupo GTI on the fleet, which provided a real challenge for our affections, but at the end of the day it never felt quite so chuckable as the Mini, despite having the better engine of the two. The Lupo always felt like a scaled-down Polo/Golf while the Mini always felt, well, unique.

The Mini's interior divided opinion. I thought it worked really well, breaking the mould of the dull black plastic interiors that had long been the hatchback norm. A real letdown, though, were the seats, which didn't support you very well, were extremely reluctant to let anyone into the back and looked horrid in the optional baggy leather trim (whether it ever covered a cow in a previous life was debatable). So we appealed to a trimming company to have a go re-covering the seats. Classic Car Services in Leicester stepped in and did a truly excellent job, sprucing up the interior no end with a combination of black leather and grey Alcantara as well as adding beefier side-bolsters to the front seats. The whole job took a week and cost a reasonable ΂£800. Incidentally, since our car was delivered BMW has introduced improved sports seats, though they still don't look as smart as our re-trimmed ones.

It soon came apparent that the engine was the Mini's weakest link, lacking the sort of flair that the rest of the car seemed to have in skiploads. Help was at hand though - Mike Cooper had developed a factory-approved 'Works' kit to up-grade the standard engine from 113bhp to 130bhp with a modified cylinder head, exhaust and a change of engine chip. Our car was soon booked in. On its return it felt quicker, with extra sparkle over 6000rpm and a gruffer exhaust note, though it would be hard to justify the ΂£2408 cost of the kit for the performance gain alone.

What it did, though, was completely change the character of the Cooper. Suddenly it didn't feel like a car carefully developed to satisfy some Eurocrat in terms of emissions and noise but a cheeky hot hatch that broke all the rules to give the driver something he'd forgotten about - fun. You'd swear there were carbs under the bonnet, an impression exaggerated when we went the whole hog and had the cone air filter fitted as well. This final tweak is best enjoyed on your own, though - the noise does become intrusive if you use all the revs! Another problem with the conversion is that the amazing ΂£100 'TLC' option of five years/50,000 miles of free servicing is invalidated once you have the 'Works' kit fitted, though the warranty is unaffected.

It was around this time that the Mini suffered its biggest failure - at 8000 miles it decided to lose synchromesh on third gear. The 'box needed replacing. Nothing to do with the 'Works' conversion; the culprit turned out to be a cracked synchro cone. The real bind was how long it took to get a new one fitted - a full 28 days. It seemed parts supply wasn't up to scratch in those early days as all efforts went into producing cars rather than keeping spare parts back for cars already sold. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that spares have to come via Germany even though the car is made in Cowley. At least a replacement car was offered, though a Vauxhall Corsa is no Mini substitute.

Generally, Wollaston BMW was hard to fault. BMW dealers really do seem to care and I would always get calls to keep me informed of any delays, or when the car was ready. They did prove they were human, though, when they forgot to stamp the book when they carried out the only service we needed at 9500 miles.

The service indicator said another visit wasn't due till 21,588 miles. Unfortunately there would be plenty of unscheduled visits to Wollaston BMW...

Annoying rattles in the interior turned out to be the tailgate stops working loose, while an irritating wind noise was a faulty roof gutter. There was also a recall to replace bolts in the front suspension which were too short for the locknuts to grip on, electric windows that decided not to seal anymore, and most recently, a visit to replace an oil filler cap them seemed to have blown off during a trackday. The car still pulls to the left and the fuel gauge never goes to full but I thought I'd get them done at the next service - that's the nice thing about a three-year warranty, there's no panic.

Aside from the service, which cost ΂£127, the only other expense was two replacement front tyres at 18,100 miles - ΂£150 fitted. They would have lasted longer if the car hadn't been used to give passenger rides on three evoactive days; in fact I reckon the rears will last another 10-15,000 miles.

Depreciation was another matter, however, and those mods did nothing to help. Build a Mini to the same spec as ours and it'll cost you ΂£17,500. The best trade-in price I could get was ΂£10,000. A ΂£7500 loss in just over a year is appalling, and the simple fact is that neither the 'Works' kit nor the improved interior added anything to the resale value, while high mileage is a real killer if it isn't the norm (most Minis are used as second cars). People who want more performance can now go for a Cooper 'S' rather than a Cooper 'Works', and then there's the lack of 'TLC'...
So here we are at the end of the test, and overall it's been a great car to run - way more enjoyable than I was expecting, despite the niggles. I'd forgotten how much fun you could have with a slowish car that you have to drive flat-out most of the time. Call it the hire car syndrome - you get your kicks from keeping the momentum up.

Some people have accused journalists of over-hyping the Mini and the way it drives. But every now and then a car is launched that bends the rules in its class, a car that's so far ahead of what went before that it gives the whole industry a wake-up call. Suddenly the journos can't stop writing about it, almost as though they have to over-compensate for all the glowing words they'd written in the preceding months about what were actually rather ordinary cars.

Go easy on the options list and Mini has to be one of the most sensible ownership propositions out there. I'm even tempted to buy our long-termer myself, to act as some sort of tender to Starship Enterprise (the family's new-shape Range Rover). I know I'm going to miss it that much.