The BMW-built 2004 Mini Cooper is not a perfect automobile. Let us just take a moment to let that understatement reverberate: The back seat is the automotive equivalent of a spider hole in Tikrit. The ride is rough enough to disqualify you from future organ donations. Compared with the amniotic hush of a Lexus LS 430 or Volkswagen Phaeton, the Mini's warbling, static-filled ambience sounds as if it was recorded in Sam Phillips' Sun Records studio.

But the Mini -- especially the John Cooper Works edition I drove recently -- is a righteous piece, a snubbed-down, amped-up, hot rod Hobbit that turns the most galling stop-and-go errand into an occasion for joyous gear-jamming and games of Diss the SUV. I defy you not to love this car.

the Mini is brought to you by the letter U, as in U-turn. See a parking place on the other side of the street? You are on it like Snoop on a fatty.

The car is bleeding mad with torque from 4,000 to 6,000 rpm (peak torque is 177 pound-feet at 4,000 rpm), which means that with a well-chosen gear in hand, the nearly 2,700-pound car has a wicked punch. All that stands between you and the space ahead of that rolling roadblock -- you know who you are, Lincoln Navigator -- is will.

With its wide stance, short wheelbase and quick steering ratio, the Mini JCW turns on a dime and leaves 11 cents change.

I am surprised how many people, cowered by the truck-frame leviathans loose in the land, ask me whether the Mini is safe.... my philosophy is they can't hit what they can't catch, so I think the Mini JCW is pretty darn safe.