Article Abstract
- The MINI Paceman Journey is a real one-off constructed by BMW apprentices in Munich and Dingolfing from a Cooper S Paceman ALL4, with 184 hp, ALL4 drive, and a six-speed handbook — and there are zero plans to ever construct one other one.
- On a frozen Swedish lake, the automotive drifts, communicates by the steering, and feels genuinely uncooked in a method most fashionable MINIs merely do not — mild, loud, and alive.
- It proves MINI nonetheless has a method for constructing vehicles individuals truly care about. The model simply wants to make use of it extra typically.
Final 12 months I wrote concerning the MINI Beachcomber idea, that roofless, doorless thought of what a MINI might be if the model let its creativeness run free. I mentioned then that MINI has all the time been at its finest when it stops attempting to be wise. The Paceman Journey makes precisely the identical argument — besides it does it with a pickup mattress, a snorkel, and four-wheel drive. And by some means, someplace alongside the way in which, MINI Basic and BMW Sweden organized for me to drive it on a frozen lake in Sweden.
There is just one of those on the earth. Let that sit for a second.
What Is It, Precisely?
The MINI Paceman Journey began life as a normal MINI Cooper S Paceman ALL4 — the marginally wider, barely taller, barely extra grown-up MINI that got here with all-wheel drive. BMW apprentices and instructors on the firm’s crops in Munich and Dingolfing reduce off the rear finish, stripped out the again bench, and turned the entire thing right into a two-seater pickup truck.
They gave it unique Jungle Inexperienced Metallic paint, matte and gloss-black accents, a modified chassis with considerably prolonged floor clearance and steeper method and departure ramp angles, correct off-road tires with deep chunky treads, a snorkel air consumption at roofline degree so it might sort out water crossings, a roof rack loaded with auxiliary ahead lighting, and a small trailer hitch on the again.
Below the hood sits the identical turbocharged 1.6-liter four-cylinder because the Cooper S Paceman it was constructed from, making 184 horsepower and channeled by MINI’s ALL4 all-wheel-drive system. The gearbox is a six-speed handbook. No paddles, no DCT, no computerized mode. You shift it your self, three pedals, the way in which the unique Mini all the time was.
It’s utterly insane. It’s utterly right.
The Design Does One thing to You
I’ve checked out footage of this automotive in all probability 100 occasions because it first appeared in 2014, and I figured by now I’d be over it. Standing subsequent to it within the chilly Swedish air, I used to be not over it. There’s something a couple of pickup truck that appeals to plenty of MINI, and why not, BMW fans.
The brief overhangs are nonetheless there, that basic MINI DNA, however now there’s this purposeful mattress sitting behind a tiny two-person cabin, with a snorkel poking up alongside the A-pillar and off-road tires pushing out previous the arches. It seems like one thing a child drew when requested what a MINI ought to appear like for an journey.
The Jungle Inexperienced paint doesn’t damage. Within the flat northern mild, with snow on the bottom, it regarded like one thing out of a rally stage from the Nineteen Sixties. It has this scrappy confidence that almost all vehicles couldn’t carry off. As a result of it’s a MINI, it really works utterly.
A Small, However Intimate Inside
The cabin is tiny. Clearly. You understand it’s going to be small earlier than you open the door, and it’s nonetheless smaller than you count on. With the rear seats gone, it’s simply you and one passenger, and the automotive wraps round you want a helmet. The steering wheel is shut. The home windows are shut.
In a chilly Swedish winter, that’s not a foul factor. I felt sealed in, which made the entire expertise on the lake really feel extra visceral, not much less. The inside is noisy. Wind noise, tire noise, highway noise — all of it comes by with little or no filtration. On a clean frozen lake it was manageable. On something tough, you’d be shouting over it. For this automotive, on this context, that labored. It felt uncooked in the way in which older vehicles really feel uncooked, just like the equipment is a part of the dialog moderately than one thing to be apologized for.
On the Ice
BMW Sweden and MINI Basic organized a full session on a frozen lake, which is the form of alternative you don’t stroll away from. Even when it means altering three planes to get to Northern Europe. Ice driving has a selected high quality the place all of the bodily suggestions is amplified. Grip comes and goes in a method that feels virtually liquid. You are feeling the entrance finish looking, really feel the rear shifting earlier than the numbers would ever inform you it was shifting. In a rear-wheel-drive automotive on ice, you’re all the time managing a slide. Within the Paceman Journey, with ALL4 and 184 horsepower by a handbook gearbox, you had been selecting when to invoke the slide and the way far to take it.
The steering is genuinely good. I didn’t count on that to be the factor I stored coming again to, however it was. There’s actual suggestions by the wheel — not plenty of weight, as a result of the automotive is mild, however real communication about what the entrance tires are doing. On ice, that issues greater than it does anyplace else. You’re studying the automotive by your fingers as a lot as by your eyes.
The handbook gearbox makes the whole lot higher. There’s something cool about holding a gear by a drift, downshifting while you need traction moderately than energy — all of it provides a layer of involvement {that a} paddleshift transmission can’t replicate. This automotive was all the time meant to be handbook. It could be a distinct, lesser expertise with anything.
I drifted it. Loads. The ALL4 system isn’t a conventional locking differential setup, so you may’t simply pitch it sideways and maintain it there indefinitely the way in which you would possibly with a purpose-built drift automotive, however with the proper entry pace, slight braking and sufficient throttle by the nook, the rear would swing large and the automotive would maintain a satisfying arc. As a result of it’s mild — genuinely mild for one thing with raised suspension and off-road {hardware} — it modifications course shortly while you want it to. There’s no mass to struggle towards. You ask, it responds.
There was one second, late within the session, the place I got here into a large left-hander too quick, the rear went additional than I needed, and I had about half a second to determine whether or not to feed in reverse lock or carry and hope. I fed within the lock. The automotive got here again. I used to be grinning like an fool, regardless that I used to be terrified as a result of the MINI Basic people warned me to carry it again in a single piece.
Why MINI Wants This Automotive
MINI has spent the final decade rising in each course. Hatchbacks, convertibles, crossovers, electrics. They’re all good vehicles. None of them, outdoors of the JCW variants, has the form of character that makes you wish to inform somebody about it at dinner.
The Paceman Journey has that character. So did the Beachcomber. The unique Mini had it accidentally, and the trendy MINI has been chasing it ever since, typically getting shut, typically not. What the Paceman Journey reveals is that the method isn’t mysterious. Make one thing small and purposeful and somewhat bit unusual, give it a handbook gearbox, and don’t overthink the remaining.
I’m not saying MINI must construct a pickup truck. However somebody in that room in Munich in 2014 regarded on the Paceman, took off the rear roof, added a snorkel and a few chunky tires, and produced one thing {that a} decade later I’m nonetheless eager about after driving. That intuition — construct the bizarre factor, see if it really works — is what the model wants extra of. Not a manufacturing pickup. Simply extra willingness to construct the factor that shouldn’t work however does.
One in every of One
There aren’t any manufacturing plans for this automotive. MINI has been clear on that, much more not too long ago. With MINI shifting deeper into electrification, a 1.6 turbocharged handbook pickup truck with a snorkel isn’t the place the model’s power goes. However possibly it ought to be because the automotive world is making a U-turn in direction of combustion engines once more.
And this MINI thought exists. It really works. On a frozen lake in Sweden, it was higher than I anticipated it to be, which is saying one thing as a result of I went in wanting it to be good and half-expecting to be let down. I wasn’t.
Thanks to MINI Basic and BMW Sweden for setting this up. And to whoever it was in that Munich coaching facility in 2014 who checked out a Paceman and thought “what if we reduce off the again and put a mattress on it” — you had been proper. You simply weren’t proper on the proper time.
[Photos provided by BMW Classic / MINI Classic @davidpentek]
