This was our first ever MINI and what started out love affair with the modern MINI. Still probably our favourite. The balance between the driver’s capabilities and that of the car are the most closely matched in a Cooper. Since this car we have had two JCW cars and they are stingingly quick cars but in truth the car’s capabilities far outstrip those of the driver. Put another way you can drive a Cooper flat out say 50 per cent of the time and a JCW say 10 per cent of the time. This makes a Cooper a seriously fun car to drive.

The car now belongs to Peanut’s daughter The Elf, who is back with us for a short while. Nice as it is to have her around for a while, it’s really nice to have CooperBeast back in our lives for a bit. Miss this boy!

When we got PaceBeast we decided to make him an homage to our first MINI CooperBeast by recreating his colours right down to deliberately not ordering tear tinted glass to better match the original.