The B-Road Beast: My Experience with the Evolved GP3 Mini Cooper

As I stood next to the car, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and anticipation. The Evolved GP3 Mini Cooper was unlike any other Mini I had ever seen before. With its bespoke GP3 design wheels and exhaust system, it looked like a miniature Formula 1 racing car. And as I took a seat behind the wheel, I knew that this was going to be an unforgettable experience.

The first thing that struck me about the car was its performance. The Evolved team had worked their magic, transforming the standard Mini Cooper into a road-going monster. As I put it through its paces on the B-road, I was amazed at how quickly it accelerated and handled. It was like having a rocket ship on wheels, with the power and agility of a supercar. And as I took the corners, the car's chassis and suspension worked in perfect harmony to deliver a thrilling experience that left me grinning from ear to ear.

But what really set the Evolved GP3 apart from its standard counterpart was its exhaust system. Oh, the sweet, sweet sound of that exhaust note! It was like music to my ears, a symphony of power and speed that seemed to grow louder and more urgent with every acceleration. And as I pushed the car harder, the exhaust grew more menacing, a battle cry that seemed to warn all who crossed its path: "I'm coming for you!"

Of course, there were some downsides to driving the Evolved GP3. The gearbox, in particular, was a bit of a letdown. It felt laggy and unresponsive at times, which made me long for the manual transmission that I had previously fantasized about owning. But as much as I wanted a bigger gear indicator, I couldn't deny the car's sheer performance potential.

One feature that impressed me was the bespoke wheels on the Evolved GP3. Designed specifically for the car by genius from inran and the guys at evolve, they looked like something out of a Formula 1 racing car. And as I looked closer, I realized just how well-designed they were – with intricate details and precision engineering that spoke to the team's commitment to quality.

But what really sealed my fate was when I took the car on its favorite B-road hill climb route. The sound of the exhaust growing louder and more urgent as I accelerated was like music to my ears, a symphony of power and speed that seemed to grow louder and more intense with every passing second. And as I hurtled up the hill, the car's chassis and suspension worked in perfect harmony to deliver a thrilling experience that left me breathless and grinning from ear to ear.

Of course, there were some practical considerations to keep in mind when driving the Evolved GP3. For one, it was an absolute b-road destroyer – so much so that I had to be careful not to get too enthusiastic on certain corners! But as impressive as its performance potential was, I couldn't help but feel a pang of disappointment at the car's lack of refinement. The suspension setup, for example, was just too harsh and unforgiving for road driving.

Despite this, I have to admit that I've fallen head over heels in love with the Evolved GP3 Mini Cooper. It's an incredible piece of engineering, and one that has left me grinning from ear to ear. And while it may not be perfect – particularly when it comes to its gearbox and suspension setup – I think I can forgive those minor quibbles for the sheer joy and excitement that this car brings to the table.

In fact, as I sat in the Evolved GP3, I couldn't help but feel a sense of disappointment that I wouldn't be buying one for myself. But alas, I'm still not a massive fan of the gearbox – I'd much rather have a manual transmission, and I know that's just not possible with this particular car.

But as I looked around at my fellow Mini enthusiasts, I couldn't help but feel a sense of solidarity. We're all in this together, whether we're driving classic Minis or modern ones like the Evolved GP3. And who knows? Maybe one day I'll take the plunge and join the ranks of those lucky enough to own an Evolved GP3 Mini Cooper.

Until then, though, I'm content to watch from afar as the car takes on B-roads and country lanes, its bespoke wheels and exhaust system leaving all who cross its path in awe. And as for me? Well, I'll just have to keep dreaming of the day when I can join the ranks of those lucky enough to drive this incredible machine.

As I pulled away from the car, I couldn't help but feel a sense of gratitude towards Imran and the guys at Evolved – they've created something truly special with the GP3 Mini Cooper. And who knows? Maybe one day I'll have the chance to take it for a spin on a track...

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys and welcome to petroped and welcome to a video i've wanted to make for quite some time now although actually there's another part of me doesn't want to make this film i finally got my hands on the mini gp3 i've been driving the car for the last week and finally i'm in a position where i can conclude my mini gp3 story from ordering it before it was even announced to canceling it at the last minute and replacing it with a jcw clubman did i make the right decision do i regret making that decision well after a week of ownership of the gp3 i think i think now i'm in a position to tell you my final thoughts now i actually want to start this video by going back in time about six years to my if you like the beginning of my mini journey with this my r59 mini jcw roadster now i bought this car i'd never had a mini before i'd always hank it after classic minis i did quite like the new modern mini a friend of mine had a an r56 jcw which i drove and really liked and then another friend of mine got a red roadster and i just thought it's a really cool car and this is in the days before youtube i bought the car very rapidly fell in love with it i fell in love with the the character the car has at the time it was a 211 horsepower front wheel drive manual soft top car lots of fun down at b road that go-kart feel that mini talk about and i fell in love with that and when i first started youtube this was the car that i built the channel around i did lots of videos around it and then when it came out a warranty i started to go down the modification route as some many of you i'm sure know i've also got massive hay fever today so huge apologies for that i took it to lowen we put a stage to map on the car we put really important things for this car's driving characteristics we put a quaff diff in there a ttv racing clutch the b road hunting club put it on bc racing coilovers low and gave it some really nice geometry what they call their fast road geometry setup and it turned this car into an absolute pleasure to drive very engaging very fast really cool kind of darty field arty characteristics and a manual gearbox and at the time the other car in the household we had an audi s4 but i wanted to look at changing my car initially i was going to trade this in for something else about this time the first shot of the prototype concept gp3 had come out and it looked amazing and obviously being in the youtube space i kind of started to get talking to people and it just sounded like it was going to be amazing car and i took the decision to put an order in one before we'd really seen much more than the press shots of it going around the nordschleife with all the camo on it we didn't know anything about the spec we knew it was going to be fast that's for sure we knew it was going to be about 300 horsepower we didn't know much else then when we started to see more details of the car come out and i saw it at a festival of speed and then we saw it without the camo the car looked really impressive things started to in the back of my head think is this the right car for you it had an automatic gearbox the thing i love about this mini is its manual drive it didn't have rear seats it wasn't a particularly practical car it was a very track oriented car and for my lifestyle i started to worry although it would be a brilliant youtuber's car it probably wouldn't be a particularly good daily for me and at the same time mini uk gave me a clubman jcw just after i'd been on the press drive to bruges we had that car for three months my wife and i fell in love with it and i realized that that was a much better car for us so let's talk about the clubman and the things i love most about the clubman now i guess first things to say is there is actually quite a bit of the clubman in the gp3 we've got the same engine 306 horsepower four-cylinder two-liter turbocharged engine the big difference this has a four-wheel drive platform underneath it but it has the same gearbox but with slightly different calibration so there's a lot of kind of crossover very similar power cars but the big and obvious difference for this car is it's got four doors it's got seats in the back and it's got a boot it's that kind of sort of mini estate format so for the dogs which you'll see mooching around today it was a brilliant brilliant option other things i really liked i could spec roof rails so i could put roof bars and either a roof box on my bikes on the roof it was just a far more practical car the final thing i think for me that made me go this way is i was going to buy the gp3 brand new it was going to cost me 37.5 pounds it was a 3 000 unit limited run i didn't know what that was going to do to residuals more on that in a moment but this car the the the sticker price for this car was about 40 000 pounds but i bought an ex demonstrator just four months old about three or four thousand miles on the clock and it was 30 000 pounds it was 10 000 pounds cheaper someone else had seen that hit of depreciation which made me feel an awful lot better about the car because i buy these cars with my money i don't want to be sitting on a loss of 10 or 15 000 pounds after a couple of years so that kind of made this a little bit better and then i have done a few things to this car it's on oz racing wheels michelin pilot sport 4s tyres it's got an eventually intake and a remus exhaust so i was able to work with partners and create content around that for my youtube channel but i absolutely love this car the final thing that made me love this car is because the cost of ownership was that little bit cheaper it meant that keeping hold of the roadster was a realistic option and i now know that i don't have to sell the roadster it's bought and paid for it cost me very little to keep the insurance each year isn't very much the tax isn't very much and i've still got some really cool projects this year on the roadster to modify it and do some cool things so so far so good very little regret in my being then i get to drive the gp um now it was last year at vista heritage center i got to drive it on track and i'd spoken to a few people that had driven it on track and everyone said look this thing is ballistically fast i drove it on track and absolutely agreed however i was just a bit i wonder what it's going to be like as a proposition to live with on the road and that's what i'll be doing this week so let's just have a quick chat about the styling and aesthetics because there are things i regret about not getting this car just from the way it looks i think it looks sensational so let's talk about the outside of the car and then talk about what it's like to drive now there's no doubt that the car has striking looks that certainly divide opinion i mean i think we've all got an opinion on the the side fenders and the massive rear wing personally i love the wing the fenders i thought they would grow on me and then maybe not so much but what i would say about this car is it draws attention and it holds its own i did a drive out last weekend with a whole bunch of supercars and they were all parked in the line and the only car that was getting more attention than this was a super performance gt40 i mean this it really does people like it they want to come and have a look at it it's not a particularly uh regular car that you see out and about i like the looks of it parked in the garage i've now looked back and going would be nice to have it partner even mrs petroped said it looked pretty cool she did then follow up by saying if you bought that you'd get a divorce she's not that impressed with this format if you like but there are a few things that i always say until you've washed a car for the first time you can't have a complete opinion on it and i have washed this car and the one thing i did think that would drive me mad about these fenders did drive me mad stones get especially into the rear ones up into them but they're very very difficult to get out and i think that over time would probably drive me mad inside the car the biggest thing for me and i know that it's definitely a case of it wouldn't be a practical option is the boot space and just room for the pups isn't good yeah i mean there's plenty of space for them but you just fall back into this not very good in here for you guys is it okay and it's not very good for just general practical luggage there's very few places you can anchor points into there's this fake strut brace which i've mentioned in other videos and this for me this space is probably one of the biggest reasons why i know this car wouldn't have worked for me as a daily now i know there are quite a few of my followers that have these that daily them and that's all well and good however on a day-to-day basis if this is your only car this is not really a car that you're going to daily that easily if you want to have some fun on a track or you have some fun at the weekend that's a different matter entirely but i was looking for a car that was a little bit more rounded i don't know my romantic visions i thought i could probably get away with dailying this but i'm not sure you to be too impressed would you do you want to get out now hey i'm going to get out first before you can so big question is what's this car like to drive well there's only one way to put that out we take it for one right i'll get some cameras set up and we'll get going so so far then all of the decisions i made about whether to buy this car or not were based on things that i could actually tangibly see or look or feel i could you know i looked inside the car at festival of speed and and i was able to make those decisions the one factor i couldn't though was was to drive it on the road and one of the reasons why it's taken me so long to get this car on the channel apart from the fact it was super busy when it first came onto press fleet was almost a reluctance just in case i get it on the channel and it's really really good and i love it to bits and i love driving it and then i'll be gutted now the second you get in this car and you start driving it you realize that it is a very very hardcore track focused uncompromising car the suspension setup is incredibly firm and then the hankook tires that were developed for this car are so low profile they remind me very much of the tyres i've just taken off of my clubman what that means is you feel every stone and ship bump and imperfection in the road it transmits itself up through the car and into your bum and the faster you go the more severe those trapped missions become and you start to find yourself vibrating and bumping along in the car it's clear that this car suspension was designed for a track for a nice silky smooth billiard table like track not a typical british road so when you start to drive down a road like this the very first thing is it's a very firm very uncompromising ride i'm doing 60 miles an hour and you can probably see the way i'm moving around in my seat it reminds me very much actually of acidic type r before they introduced comfort mode those things were always quite firm and quite bouncy so that instantly makes me think ah i like my my roadster's got a really firm ride but it's it's not this bad the problem though with this car is when you start to push on uh it's putting a lot of power through the front wheels 306 horsepower 450 newton meters through the automatic gearbox and it has an electronic diff not a man not a mechanical diff and it it tracks and talks to is like no other car i have ever been in let me try and show you what i mean i'm going to come down into the manual gearbox and i'm going to accelerate away there we go right we go yeah you have to hang on the car tramlines and because and again it's not just the uk but we tend to have a crown in the road so what happens is the car follows the road and pulls you from one way to another at the same time you're getting talk steer and you find yourself kind of doing this as you're driving down the road and it's quite off-putting it's a it's a dry day today but couple into that a bit of wet weather and this car is a real handful and one of the things i've found is if you're just on your own and there's no other cars about it's difficult enough keeping it in your lane but when you go and try and overtake something and it does that mid overtake which happened to me a couple of days ago it's very very disconcerting i was just about to go past the car and it talks to you and followed the tram lines and tracked and pulled me to the right and i nearly went off the road and that for me isn't a good thing so the question is is there anything that could be done to sort that out well yesterday i headed over to evolve to my good mate imran who runs involved with his mate bilal and they've had a gp3 now for well they were one of the first cars delivered in the uk and they've done some very cool things with their gp3 to kind of sort out that asbo in your face handling characteristic so let's see how i got on driving their car yesterday so here we are in in brands gp3 and straight away you will notice uh a very very different exhaust tone it's got an opf back uh exhaust which just sounds absolutely brilliant but the big difference in this car and i can feel it there straight away is that it's changed the dampers it's got bilstein club sport dampers on it and that means you can adjust far more things like camber and tobe and so on and they've changed the geometry of the car completely especially the rear wheels it's still pointy and darty at the front but it just doesn't pull and tug at the steering wheel nearly as much as the standard car the suspension's still pretty firm don't get me wrong but it's just soaking up these bumps and lumps on this bit of road and we're filming today and i've driven down here in the standard gp and just there it's just not tugging at the steering wheel at all it's almost like it's it's able to put the power down more other differences this car it is dropped a little bit i think about 20 mils compared to the standard car and importantly it's running on michelin pilot sport 4s tyres and i think they make a huge difference to the ride quality so it's not that the standard gp isn't a hoot and isn't an amazing car but what i find with this car what imrans and the guys at evolve have been able to do is to just dial back some of the harshness that comes from this car having a completely track focus setup it's still firm it's still a pointy mini like i like but it's just able to deal with this kind of b road far far better and it's just turned into an absolute b-road weapon and now i love it and it sounds bloody good as well oh yes i'm rapidly falling in love with this car i'm still not a massive fan of the gearbox if i'm honest i want a bigger gear indicator if i'm honest it's just a bit laggy give me a manual oh my days listen to that seat it's just able to it's still firm look you can see me being unsettled in the seat so it's you know if you want a soft ride comfort luxurious car do not buy one of these but it's just far more settled than the standard car last thing to note genius from inran and the guys it evolved in the wheels on this car he had them made specifically for the car they are bespoke gp3 design and i think they look magnificent i haven't actually come to quite like the standard wheels of the cheaper three i thought they were a bit jarring the first time i saw them but i quite like them really this car oh the exhaust just makes it for me just on throttle there's none of the tug a couple of times i've really almost felt like the car as i'm overtaking wants to kind of either stick me in a ditch stick me in the car i'm overtaking or just put me on the wrong side of the road completely and that's never a good thing right yes i like this car now i really really like it so yeah incredible what imran and the guys at evolve have done to their gp3 utterly transforms the car and i don't want to take anything away from the stock gb3 because it is an incredible thing to drive i mean let's just quickly while we're here taking up my favorite bit of hill climb road shall we i mean it is it's got so much gold it's got a very pointy front end but it's just when you're on throttle like i mean that's actually now pulling nicely into the corner it's a proper quick car this on dry conditions it's it's a b road destroyer there is no doubt there it's pulling there in my hand there and i think that that's the bit that makes me really glad about the decision i made because much as this car would be amazing on a track on a on a b road yes yes i could do the modifications that the imran has done to his car those those just the suspension components are like three thousand quid and if you add in the wheels and the exhaust and the other things you're looking at i know five six thousand pounds on a car that already was thirty seven and a half thousand quid what i am comforted by is if you wanna buy one of these now and you go on autotrader you're looking at mid to high thirties they have kind of held their price a lot better than i thought they would have done which is which is really great for those guys that got one but this is not a car for me and i am now convinced about that and i'm glad and relieved of the decision i've made difficult as it was back at that time if i were to buy another mini uh the roadster's not going anywhere the clubman's not going anywhere for a while anyway but i am that there are three minis that i am tempted by i would love a classic mini a classic cooper s but i think the ship sailed on that well they're so expensive now i love uh an r53 cooper s maybe even a gp1 but the supercharged r53 they're amazing little things they sound incredible or i'd still love to do an r56 uh track day car uh so like a road going mini challenge car i've toyed with that idea about five times now but i think my worry was it'd be so similar to the roadster but it would be a gp3 and i'd love to know what you think um as i said this is it's a it's an amazing piece of engineering however i just think mini lost a trick the way the suspension setup just just isn't right for re-road driving a manual gearbox in this car would be would be so much better but i know the reasons why that's not possible but i am glad i finally got it on the road and i'm glad i finally am at peace with my decision the club and for me is a much much better car but i've had a hoot driving this for the week anyway guys i hope you enjoyed that if you have done so please give me a thumbs up comments below are always welcome if you haven't done so already please subscribe to coach bedford and i'll see on the next film i'm off hope to try and get some happy history to get religious bloody heavy females doing my head in i'll see on the next field take care guys youhey guys and welcome to petroped and welcome to a video i've wanted to make for quite some time now although actually there's another part of me doesn't want to make this film i finally got my hands on the mini gp3 i've been driving the car for the last week and finally i'm in a position where i can conclude my mini gp3 story from ordering it before it was even announced to canceling it at the last minute and replacing it with a jcw clubman did i make the right decision do i regret making that decision well after a week of ownership of the gp3 i think i think now i'm in a position to tell you my final thoughts now i actually want to start this video by going back in time about six years to my if you like the beginning of my mini journey with this my r59 mini jcw roadster now i bought this car i'd never had a mini before i'd always hank it after classic minis i did quite like the new modern mini a friend of mine had a an r56 jcw which i drove and really liked and then another friend of mine got a red roadster and i just thought it's a really cool car and this is in the days before youtube i bought the car very rapidly fell in love with it i fell in love with the the character the car has at the time it was a 211 horsepower front wheel drive manual soft top car lots of fun down at b road that go-kart feel that mini talk about and i fell in love with that and when i first started youtube this was the car that i built the channel around i did lots of videos around it and then when it came out a warranty i started to go down the modification route as some many of you i'm sure know i've also got massive hay fever today so huge apologies for that i took it to lowen we put a stage to map on the car we put really important things for this car's driving characteristics we put a quaff diff in there a ttv racing clutch the b road hunting club put it on bc racing coilovers low and gave it some really nice geometry what they call their fast road geometry setup and it turned this car into an absolute pleasure to drive very engaging very fast really cool kind of darty field arty characteristics and a manual gearbox and at the time the other car in the household we had an audi s4 but i wanted to look at changing my car initially i was going to trade this in for something else about this time the first shot of the prototype concept gp3 had come out and it looked amazing and obviously being in the youtube space i kind of started to get talking to people and it just sounded like it was going to be amazing car and i took the decision to put an order in one before we'd really seen much more than the press shots of it going around the nordschleife with all the camo on it we didn't know anything about the spec we knew it was going to be fast that's for sure we knew it was going to be about 300 horsepower we didn't know much else then when we started to see more details of the car come out and i saw it at a festival of speed and then we saw it without the camo the car looked really impressive things started to in the back of my head think is this the right car for you it had an automatic gearbox the thing i love about this mini is its manual drive it didn't have rear seats it wasn't a particularly practical car it was a very track oriented car and for my lifestyle i started to worry although it would be a brilliant youtuber's car it probably wouldn't be a particularly good daily for me and at the same time mini uk gave me a clubman jcw just after i'd been on the press drive to bruges we had that car for three months my wife and i fell in love with it and i realized that that was a much better car for us so let's talk about the clubman and the things i love most about the clubman now i guess first things to say is there is actually quite a bit of the clubman in the gp3 we've got the same engine 306 horsepower four-cylinder two-liter turbocharged engine the big difference this has a four-wheel drive platform underneath it but it has the same gearbox but with slightly different calibration so there's a lot of kind of crossover very similar power cars but the big and obvious difference for this car is it's got four doors it's got seats in the back and it's got a boot it's that kind of sort of mini estate format so for the dogs which you'll see mooching around today it was a brilliant brilliant option other things i really liked i could spec roof rails so i could put roof bars and either a roof box on my bikes on the roof it was just a far more practical car the final thing i think for me that made me go this way is i was going to buy the gp3 brand new it was going to cost me 37.5 pounds it was a 3 000 unit limited run i didn't know what that was going to do to residuals more on that in a moment but this car the the the sticker price for this car was about 40 000 pounds but i bought an ex demonstrator just four months old about three or four thousand miles on the clock and it was 30 000 pounds it was 10 000 pounds cheaper someone else had seen that hit of depreciation which made me feel an awful lot better about the car because i buy these cars with my money i don't want to be sitting on a loss of 10 or 15 000 pounds after a couple of years so that kind of made this a little bit better and then i have done a few things to this car it's on oz racing wheels michelin pilot sport 4s tyres it's got an eventually intake and a remus exhaust so i was able to work with partners and create content around that for my youtube channel but i absolutely love this car the final thing that made me love this car is because the cost of ownership was that little bit cheaper it meant that keeping hold of the roadster was a realistic option and i now know that i don't have to sell the roadster it's bought and paid for it cost me very little to keep the insurance each year isn't very much the tax isn't very much and i've still got some really cool projects this year on the roadster to modify it and do some cool things so so far so good very little regret in my being then i get to drive the gp um now it was last year at vista heritage center i got to drive it on track and i'd spoken to a few people that had driven it on track and everyone said look this thing is ballistically fast i drove it on track and absolutely agreed however i was just a bit i wonder what it's going to be like as a proposition to live with on the road and that's what i'll be doing this week so let's just have a quick chat about the styling and aesthetics because there are things i regret about not getting this car just from the way it looks i think it looks sensational so let's talk about the outside of the car and then talk about what it's like to drive now there's no doubt that the car has striking looks that certainly divide opinion i mean i think we've all got an opinion on the the side fenders and the massive rear wing personally i love the wing the fenders i thought they would grow on me and then maybe not so much but what i would say about this car is it draws attention and it holds its own i did a drive out last weekend with a whole bunch of supercars and they were all parked in the line and the only car that was getting more attention than this was a super performance gt40 i mean this it really does people like it they want to come and have a look at it it's not a particularly uh regular car that you see out and about i like the looks of it parked in the garage i've now looked back and going would be nice to have it partner even mrs petroped said it looked pretty cool she did then follow up by saying if you bought that you'd get a divorce she's not that impressed with this format if you like but there are a few things that i always say until you've washed a car for the first time you can't have a complete opinion on it and i have washed this car and the one thing i did think that would drive me mad about these fenders did drive me mad stones get especially into the rear ones up into them but they're very very difficult to get out and i think that over time would probably drive me mad inside the car the biggest thing for me and i know that it's definitely a case of it wouldn't be a practical option is the boot space and just room for the pups isn't good yeah i mean there's plenty of space for them but you just fall back into this not very good in here for you guys is it okay and it's not very good for just general practical luggage there's very few places you can anchor points into there's this fake strut brace which i've mentioned in other videos and this for me this space is probably one of the biggest reasons why i know this car wouldn't have worked for me as a daily now i know there are quite a few of my followers that have these that daily them and that's all well and good however on a day-to-day basis if this is your only car this is not really a car that you're going to daily that easily if you want to have some fun on a track or you have some fun at the weekend that's a different matter entirely but i was looking for a car that was a little bit more rounded i don't know my romantic visions i thought i could probably get away with dailying this but i'm not sure you to be too impressed would you do you want to get out now hey i'm going to get out first before you can so big question is what's this car like to drive well there's only one way to put that out we take it for one right i'll get some cameras set up and we'll get going so so far then all of the decisions i made about whether to buy this car or not were based on things that i could actually tangibly see or look or feel i could you know i looked inside the car at festival of speed and and i was able to make those decisions the one factor i couldn't though was was to drive it on the road and one of the reasons why it's taken me so long to get this car on the channel apart from the fact it was super busy when it first came onto press fleet was almost a reluctance just in case i get it on the channel and it's really really good and i love it to bits and i love driving it and then i'll be gutted now the second you get in this car and you start driving it you realize that it is a very very hardcore track focused uncompromising car the suspension setup is incredibly firm and then the hankook tires that were developed for this car are so low profile they remind me very much of the tyres i've just taken off of my clubman what that means is you feel every stone and ship bump and imperfection in the road it transmits itself up through the car and into your bum and the faster you go the more severe those trapped missions become and you start to find yourself vibrating and bumping along in the car it's clear that this car suspension was designed for a track for a nice silky smooth billiard table like track not a typical british road so when you start to drive down a road like this the very first thing is it's a very firm very uncompromising ride i'm doing 60 miles an hour and you can probably see the way i'm moving around in my seat it reminds me very much actually of acidic type r before they introduced comfort mode those things were always quite firm and quite bouncy so that instantly makes me think ah i like my my roadster's got a really firm ride but it's it's not this bad the problem though with this car is when you start to push on uh it's putting a lot of power through the front wheels 306 horsepower 450 newton meters through the automatic gearbox and it has an electronic diff not a man not a mechanical diff and it it tracks and talks to is like no other car i have ever been in let me try and show you what i mean i'm going to come down into the manual gearbox and i'm going to accelerate away there we go right we go yeah you have to hang on the car tramlines and because and again it's not just the uk but we tend to have a crown in the road so what happens is the car follows the road and pulls you from one way to another at the same time you're getting talk steer and you find yourself kind of doing this as you're driving down the road and it's quite off-putting it's a it's a dry day today but couple into that a bit of wet weather and this car is a real handful and one of the things i've found is if you're just on your own and there's no other cars about it's difficult enough keeping it in your lane but when you go and try and overtake something and it does that mid overtake which happened to me a couple of days ago it's very very disconcerting i was just about to go past the car and it talks to you and followed the tram lines and tracked and pulled me to the right and i nearly went off the road and that for me isn't a good thing so the question is is there anything that could be done to sort that out well yesterday i headed over to evolve to my good mate imran who runs involved with his mate bilal and they've had a gp3 now for well they were one of the first cars delivered in the uk and they've done some very cool things with their gp3 to kind of sort out that asbo in your face handling characteristic so let's see how i got on driving their car yesterday so here we are in in brands gp3 and straight away you will notice uh a very very different exhaust tone it's got an opf back uh exhaust which just sounds absolutely brilliant but the big difference in this car and i can feel it there straight away is that it's changed the dampers it's got bilstein club sport dampers on it and that means you can adjust far more things like camber and tobe and so on and they've changed the geometry of the car completely especially the rear wheels it's still pointy and darty at the front but it just doesn't pull and tug at the steering wheel nearly as much as the standard car the suspension's still pretty firm don't get me wrong but it's just soaking up these bumps and lumps on this bit of road and we're filming today and i've driven down here in the standard gp and just there it's just not tugging at the steering wheel at all it's almost like it's it's able to put the power down more other differences this car it is dropped a little bit i think about 20 mils compared to the standard car and importantly it's running on michelin pilot sport 4s tyres and i think they make a huge difference to the ride quality so it's not that the standard gp isn't a hoot and isn't an amazing car but what i find with this car what imrans and the guys at evolve have been able to do is to just dial back some of the harshness that comes from this car having a completely track focus setup it's still firm it's still a pointy mini like i like but it's just able to deal with this kind of b road far far better and it's just turned into an absolute b-road weapon and now i love it and it sounds bloody good as well oh yes i'm rapidly falling in love with this car i'm still not a massive fan of the gearbox if i'm honest i want a bigger gear indicator if i'm honest it's just a bit laggy give me a manual oh my days listen to that seat it's just able to it's still firm look you can see me being unsettled in the seat so it's you know if you want a soft ride comfort luxurious car do not buy one of these but it's just far more settled than the standard car last thing to note genius from inran and the guys it evolved in the wheels on this car he had them made specifically for the car they are bespoke gp3 design and i think they look magnificent i haven't actually come to quite like the standard wheels of the cheaper three i thought they were a bit jarring the first time i saw them but i quite like them really this car oh the exhaust just makes it for me just on throttle there's none of the tug a couple of times i've really almost felt like the car as i'm overtaking wants to kind of either stick me in a ditch stick me in the car i'm overtaking or just put me on the wrong side of the road completely and that's never a good thing right yes i like this car now i really really like it so yeah incredible what imran and the guys at evolve have done to their gp3 utterly transforms the car and i don't want to take anything away from the stock gb3 because it is an incredible thing to drive i mean let's just quickly while we're here taking up my favorite bit of hill climb road shall we i mean it is it's got so much gold it's got a very pointy front end but it's just when you're on throttle like i mean that's actually now pulling nicely into the corner it's a proper quick car this on dry conditions it's it's a b road destroyer there is no doubt there it's pulling there in my hand there and i think that that's the bit that makes me really glad about the decision i made because much as this car would be amazing on a track on a on a b road yes yes i could do the modifications that the imran has done to his car those those just the suspension components are like three thousand quid and if you add in the wheels and the exhaust and the other things you're looking at i know five six thousand pounds on a car that already was thirty seven and a half thousand quid what i am comforted by is if you wanna buy one of these now and you go on autotrader you're looking at mid to high thirties they have kind of held their price a lot better than i thought they would have done which is which is really great for those guys that got one but this is not a car for me and i am now convinced about that and i'm glad and relieved of the decision i've made difficult as it was back at that time if i were to buy another mini uh the roadster's not going anywhere the clubman's not going anywhere for a while anyway but i am that there are three minis that i am tempted by i would love a classic mini a classic cooper s but i think the ship sailed on that well they're so expensive now i love uh an r53 cooper s maybe even a gp1 but the supercharged r53 they're amazing little things they sound incredible or i'd still love to do an r56 uh track day car uh so like a road going mini challenge car i've toyed with that idea about five times now but i think my worry was it'd be so similar to the roadster but it would be a gp3 and i'd love to know what you think um as i said this is it's a it's an amazing piece of engineering however i just think mini lost a trick the way the suspension setup just just isn't right for re-road driving a manual gearbox in this car would be would be so much better but i know the reasons why that's not possible but i am glad i finally got it on the road and i'm glad i finally am at peace with my decision the club and for me is a much much better car but i've had a hoot driving this for the week anyway guys i hope you enjoyed that if you have done so please give me a thumbs up comments below are always welcome if you haven't done so already please subscribe to coach bedford and i'll see on the next film i'm off hope to try and get some happy history to get religious bloody heavy females doing my head in i'll see on the next field take care guys you\n"