This one is very much down to personal taste. You might look at the Coupé, gasp in delight, and say, "Wow, a two-seat MINI! OMG squeee!" or something to that effect. Alternatively, you might wonder how MINI can get away with - or if it actually is getting away with - using the same design elements in such a wide range of body styles, of which the Coupé is now one of no fewer than seven.Either way, it's a distinctive little car, very closely related to the Roadster Cooper SD tested previously. The only real difference (and this is something that's easy to say but rather more difficult to engineer) is that the Coupé has a solid roof while the Roadster has a folding one.Not being a big fan of open-topped cars, I would instinctively, if given a choice, tend towards the Coupé for no other reason than the above. A more practical reason for doing so, other than the fact that it's £1130 cheaper, is that the Coupé has a much more solid body structure, and feels a great deal more secure as a result.When I drove the Roadster with the same 141bhp two-litre turbo diesel engine, I thought it had about as much power as its convertible bodyshell could take. The 184bhp Roadster Cooper S I drove before that felt as if it had rather more.Things are very different with the Coupé. It can easily cope with the diesel's power (barring a bit of torque steer if you push too hard on tight corners in damp conditions), and there's a sense that if you pick the Cooper SD it's because that's the version you wanted, not because it would have been inadvisable to choose one with a more powerful engine.The downside of the Coupé is that the considerable noise produces by the diesel reverbarates round the small cabin at lower speeds. At higher speeds you don't notice this so much, not because the engine is quieter but because its din is drowned out by an even greater amount of road noise. The Roadster, for whatever reason, doesn't seem to have anything like the same problem.The engine's behaviour is more pleasant than its noise level. In flat-out acceleration it doesn't feel strong, but it pulls well from moderate revs with a medium application of the accelerator pedal, and that's more important. And although this test wasn't long enough to establish the real-world relevance of the 65.7mpg combined fuel economy figure on the EU test cycle, experience with the Roadster suggests that it can be matched without too much effort.Despite its looks, the Coupé is one of the more practical MINIs, with a luggage capacity of 280 litres. That's better than the 240 of the Roadster, which needs somewhere for its roof to be stowed away, and something approaching double the 160 litres of the hatchback, though with that car you can increase the load space to 680 litres by folding down the rear seats. You can't do that with the Coupé because there are no rear seats to fold.There's enough room inside to take a couple of six-footers, but the interior feels cramped, with several items (such as the handbrake and armrest) apparently jostling for space. And it's difficult to see out. A friend who heard I'd been testing the Coupé asked its visibility was really as bad as he'd read in other magazines. Yes. Yes, it is.Still, for some people none of that will matter. The Coupé is a MINI sports car - how cool is that? Very cool. Case closed. Engine 1995cc, 4 cylinders Power 141bhp Transmission 6-speed manual Fuel/CO2 65.7mpg / 114g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 7.9 seconds Top speed 134mph Price £20,510 Details correct at publication date
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