The Mini is a marketing marvel. Few cars have managed to bridge the generations with such aplomb, retaining its original characteristics while catching up with the latest technological advances.
The basic car, designed to bring affordable motoring to the British working classes, caught upon a groundswell of fashion-conscious youth in the 1960s that transformed it from a sensible economic choice to a fashion essential.
But there was more to the Mini than mere image; it had an uncanny ability to corner sharply, particularly with a slight flick of the handbrake. It was - and is - just great fun to drive.
I have to admit to a personal bias towards the early Mini, having bought one with all my childhood savings in my early teens - a rusting brown banger that was transformed with a little help into, well, a multicoloured rusting banger. The bodywork contained more fibreglass and Isopon than metal. However, in my mind, as I raced it around the field where it resided, it was equal to the Coopers that won the Monte Carlo or the ones that raced through the streets of Rome in The Italian Job.
When they announced the arrival of a "new" MINI at the end of the 1990s, I harboured doubts about whether BMW could pull off a return, particularly after Volkswagen's less-than-successful relaunch of the Beetle. Yet, talk to classic Mini owners and they aspire to own the modern versions, while similar fans of the Beetle dismiss the current generation VW as nothing more than a bloated, over-priced Golf.
Since its revival, there's been the One, a duo of Coopers, a convertible and even a diesel derivative. All - bar the diesel - have spent no time loitering on forecourts, with the result that residuals are generally rock-solid. Now it's time for the finale: the Cooper Works.
The key difference between it and the rest is breeding. While others carry the Cooper moniker, the Works is a retrofit tuning pack singularly developed at the home of the original Mini Cooper, by the late John Cooper's son Mike.
The Cooper name goes back to the 1940s when John set up a racing team with his father, building cars for various races, including Formula 1 where their cars won the world championships in 1959 and 1960. However, it was the link with Mini, starting in 1961, for which the Cooper name has become synonymous. John had spotted the potential for tuning British Leyland's funky little four-seater into a fully-fledged rally car.
While many mocked, the Mini saw off far more potent rivals at the time, winning the prestigious Monte Carlo rally three times. It was hardly surprising that when BMW reinvented the brand, it knew it needed the Cooper link.
Powered by the same 1.6-litre engine as the Cooper S, the Works is effectively a retrofit tuning kit featuring a larger supercharger, cylinder head and exhaust system that helps the engine breathe better and increases power from 170bhp to 210bhp. The engine now revs higher and more willingly, and pulls more strongly throughout the six gears with a 0 to 100km/h time of 6.6 seconds and a top speed of 230km/h (143mph).
The look is the same as the Cooper S, with the large air intake cut into the bonnet and on our test car two distinctive white racing stripes running up the bonnet. The dual exhaust pipes at the back also signal this is more than the run-of-the-mill Mini.
There is, however, one annoying factor with the Works that doesn't arise as much with the Cooper S: torque steer. There's a rule of thumb in the car industry that 200bhp is the maximum output comfortably handled through the front wheels. After that you start to encounter too much torque steer. Once you cross the 200bhp limit, most car firms look to four-wheel-drive or rear-wheel-drive from the start.
Torque steer, however, is a feature of the Works package. At traffic lights and alongside a thick-fingered Mercedes E-Class owner - with regulation close-cropped haircut and enough jewellery to open a small bazaar - the Works and I wanted to prove our worth. Sadly, as the E-Class pulled away the Mini and I were left wrestling with each other, the front of the car doing a jig on the wet road, while I joined the dynamic stability control in trying to keep us pointed in the right direction.
Yet once you're moving, its handling is superb, capable of frightening any Ferrari around a tight and twisting track.
The Cooper Works package features sports suspension, lowering the Mini by 15mm, and sports brakes. Both aid the racing prowess and the sports suspension is not as spine-cracking as we expected, though your granny could still lose her dentures on the back roads. It also offers a host of other features, accoutrements that add to the look of the car rather than simply the performance. These range from carbon wing mirrors to 18-inch light alloy wheels shod with low profile tyres.
But there is one overweighing complaint about the Works package. The "tailor-made" sports seats are meant to cocoon the driver and front seat passenger. The problem is that they are far too big for the car: it's as if someone swiped them out of an M5 and shoehorned them into a Mini. The end result is that the turning knobs to adjust the positioning are rammed up against the bodywork and the only way to adjust them is when you have the door open.
The Mini has never been strong on back seat legroom - a fact that separates it from the rest of the supermini segment - and these seats effectively make it a two-seater. Early versions of the current Mini range also suffered from niggling reliability issues. However, these have long been resolved and the cars now reflect BMW build quality.
So is the Works the ultimate buy or a marketing ploy? In reality it's neither.
It can be chosen to fit your own needs and will appeal to the total Mini connoisseur. For all the performance and exclusivity of the Works, with a minimum of €10,000 between it and the Cooper S, you'd have to be an avid Mini fan before investing. Of course, with Mini's remarkable resale values, there's no doubting the Works will hold a large amount of its extra price due to a degree of exclusivity.
There was a time when I would have raided the bank account to get my hands on this sort of bespoke equipment for my Mini, battered as it was. Now, even though still a fully-fledged fan, I'd be happy to opt for the Cooper S for everyday life.
Perhaps it's a sign of age, but then the Mini has been there for many of us as we grew up. No doubt there's a young owner out there just dying for a touch of the Cooper magic.