Long-term test: MINI Aceman SE Exclusive

When developing the latest generation of MINI, the designers ensured it had the brand’s iconic upright windscreen. While it attracts lots of admiring looks, the Aceman’s is also a magnet for wind noise, insects and, in my case, a stone chip. 

Thankfully, one of Halfords’ Mobile Experts came to the rescue. Despite the so-called ‘spider crack’ being hard to put right, it was reduced to little more than a minuscule smudge in under half an hour – for £45 and without leaving my driveway.

MINI Aceman SE Exclusive: first report

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MINI’s supposed mass-market trump card is already proving a pain in the neck – quite literally

• Mileage: 1,295 miles
• Efficiency: 3.8 miles/kWh

As one of the slightly more ‘fresh-faced’ members of the Auto Express team, I must admit that I thought it would be at least a couple more decades before I had to worry about neck and back problems. Alas, despite being in my mid-twenties, this is exactly what I’ve developed over the past year, which has already helped me forge a love-hate relationship with the newest addition to our fleet, the MINI Aceman SE.

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For anyone unaware, the Aceman is, in effect, a five-door version of the all-electric MINI Cooper. Note I said ‘all-electric’, because you can’t actually buy a petrol-powered Aceman; five-door versions of the combustion-engined Cooper maintain that car’s name, as well as its hatchback design.

The Aceman, on the other hand, adopts a more à la mode SUV appearance, putting it in direct competition with one of the best-selling EVs on the market, the Ford Puma Gen-E. Both Ford and MINI are known for building small cars that are great to drive, and on first impressions the Aceman SE’s characteristically darty steering and almost startling 215bhp muscle suggest that it could prove plenty of fun on a winding rural road – I look forward to taking it for an outing.

Yet, while the Puma Gen-E manages to deliver genuine driving enjoyment alongside a comfortable ride, I only needed to drive down my own street to discover that this certainly isn’t the case with the Aceman. 

My first car was a 2014 MINI One, and I’d happily concede its rather firm suspension made it feel less like a supermini and more akin to a mobile bouncy castle. The Aceman’s set-up, on the other hand, appears to have been modelled on a very different type of fortress to the one that might appear at a child’s birthday party. 

Its rock-solid, uncompromising nature feels rather at odds with the mass-market segment the model occupies. Even more conflicting is the specification of our Aceman, which seems to give with one hand and take with the other when it comes to comfort and relaxation. It’s an all-bells-and-whistles Exclusive model with the Level 3 options pack, which means there’s very little equipment the MINI doesn’t have. 

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Of particular note are the ‘Dark Petrol’ blue vegan leather seats, which are incredibly distinctive and feel every bit worthy of this particular Aceman’s eye-watering £40,000 price tag. These are complemented by matching blue fabric on the doors, which I wish had slightly more padding for my elbow; the office chair-style armrest on the left-hand side is a lot cushier, though.

One of the benefits of the Level 3 pack is the driver’s seat massage function, which comes in particularly handy on longer journeys. It’s easily accessed via a button on the side of the chair, unlike the seat-heating function that requires two taps of the Aceman’s admittedly responsive and vivid 9.4-inch circular touchscreen to activate.

Speaking of lengthier drives, these have so far not been a problem thanks to the Aceman SE’s 49.2kWh usable battery, which is returning around 180 miles on a single charge. I just wish the MINI benefited from a higher charging maximum speed than 100kW, which feels a bit leisurely these days.

On the motorway, our Aceman’s upgraded 19-inch alloy wheels – as standard, the Exclusive gets 18-inch rims – tend to jiggle somewhat over bumps, plus the lower-profile tyres they’re wrapped in generate rather noticeable tyre roar. Such an arrangement is accompanied by the whistle of wind hitting the Aceman’s characteristically upright windscreen. That said, I tend to drown this out with the Harman Kardon stereo (part of the Level 3 pack) which is, to my ears, the best sound system in this class of car. 

Where the Aceman can’t quite trump its small SUV rivals is in terms of practicality, because the 300-litre boot falls well short of the aforementioned Puma’s 556-litre offering with the rear seats in place. Yet despite the glass sunroof eating into headroom slightly, every adult passenger I’ve carried around so far has had no problem getting comfortable. Until I drive over a speed bump, that is.

*Insurance quote from AA (0800 107 0680) for a 42-year-old in Banbury, Oxon, with three points.

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