MINI CONVERTIBLE
Its handling prowess comes to the fore on atrip to the Peaks
MILEAGE 3200
WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT
To discover whether a drop-top Mini could be the perfect car for summer
S o southern am I that I was once part of a football crowd singing a rude song about the north to the fans of, er, Watford.
Forgiveness is therefore begged for the fact that, until just recently, I had never visited the Peak District.
Beautiful, isn’t it? Lush hills turn into sheer-faced mountains, conjoined by wide valleys, covered intermittently in heather and peat bogs and grazing sheep. Overlapping a railway line miraculously surviving from a bygone era, serpentine roads meander their way through a series of picturesque villages, f lanked by flint walls and cottages that soothe the city-dweller’s soul.