More worrying is the notchy gearbox action. When it was delivered the 'change was positively horrible - a sticky, stiff and obstructive nightmare - but as the miles pile on the 'box is improving. It's still not what we've come to expect from the Cooper S, though. Everyone who tries my Mini comes back with similar complaints about the shift quality. I've taken it to our local BMW dealer, Wollaston in Northampton, but the Mini salesman assured me that it was the same as any other Cooper S gearbox he'd tried. I beg to differ and I'll probably book it in for a more thorough mechanical assessment soon.

Still, enough of the doom and gloom because our Mini is now a fully paid up member of the 200bhp club. Thanks to Birds, the official Hartge agents in the UK, the biggest complaint about the Cooper S - its straight line speed - has now been addressed. Harry came back from driving their demonstrator with nothing but praise and we just had to book our car in for the revised ECU programming and modified supercharger straight away. We were waiting for the official Cooper 'Works' kit but another delay in its launch persuaded us that the Hartge kit was the sensible option. And at ΂£1761 it looks likely to undercut the Works kit by around ΂£2000!

So, does it feel like Hartge have really found 50-odd bhp (Birds claim most conversions result in 210-212bhp)? Oh yes, and then some. The Mini now pulls hard from 2500rpm and goes truly bonkers over 5500rpm - a standard S feels like it's got two bananas up its tailpipes by comparison. For those who've been reluctant to buy into the Mini phenomenon due to a lack of class-leading pace, this is the ultimate retort. In every real-world situation I can think of, the Hartge S would blow the doors off any rival. Stick with a basic Cooper S at ΂£14,500, give it the Hartge treatment and you're looking at a real performance bargain. I'm chuffed to bits with it. But we'll be investigating different tyre options in the coming months to see if we can make those 17s work a bit harder.