We roll out of the airport’s underground car park, blinking in the Lisbon sunshine. Less than an hour earlier, we’d completed a 9-hour, 8340km flight from Dubai in order to test the new Mini Roadster in Portugal. With route map at the ready and PR chaperone Meabh clearly in our mirrors in a John Works Special Cooper, our convoy was about to find out if the company’s first ever open top two-seater really was a Mini at heart.

A fully manual six-speed gearbox is a bit of a result, even if heavy traffic means we only test second gear for the first fifteen minutes. With the roof down and surrounded by the crisp morning air, neither my co-driver nor myself are overly concerned. Picking up speed, the mild breeze across our shoulders is soon eradicated by the (very) effective heated seats.

Through the traffic and heading onto the auto-estrada on-ramp, I slot in third gear and give the right pedal a bootful. The unsuspecting Cooper Works quickly gets smaller in the rearview.

Despite extra weight balancing the missing roof, a lower centre of gravity means the traditional Mini nippiness has survived unscathed, the 1.6l engine pulling obediently on its way to the redline. The weighty clutch pedal soon encourages sporty driving, and we are all keen to hit the green hills.

A couple of tollgates later, we point the Roadster’s nose towards winding stretches of tarmac just outside Alverca Do Ribatejo. Several full lock turns down the road soon wake the Roadster up. Though hardly docile at cruising speed, the fun and excitement prominent in Mini’s pre-event reading material is now smiling cheekily at us.

Launching ourselves into corners, we find neither understeer nor oversteer. The active rear spoiler helps glue the rears firmly to the sometimes broken road surface. Mild bodyroll in some of the larier stretches aside, confidence rises with every passing dip of the horizon.

Even mid-corner, assertive high revving allows us to hit apexes when low-traffic permits, the equally impressive brakes remedying any over-ambition. Again, the rears refuse to budge.

Despite the open roof and excitable driving, engine noise is surprisingly remote. That is until, gliding through one hairpin, we catch the unmistakable dual-exhaust burble on overrun. Corner speed is temporarily forgotten while we re-play this soundtrack.

It is some considerable time before we realize that the pursuing Cooper has dropped back. Having hit the mid-point watering hole, we pull over to swap places and wait for the rest of our convoy to catch up.

Priced around the $30,000 mark, neither the Roadster nor the JWS Cooper hits supercar territory. Yet the identifiable quirkiness of both Minis clearly has an effect on the locals, several of whom wander over for a closer look.

Back on the road and now in the passenger seat, my thoughts turn to the interior, where Mini’s heritage is clear to see. The Centre Speedo – which, thanks to a digital display behind the wheel, I had ignored while driving – doubles up as the onboard monitor, retro styling melding neatly with satnav and cruise control readouts.

On the centre console, switches pulled straight out of a fifties car brochure sit affixed to high quality BMW Group trim. Though often it is the passenger who spends time looking for the necessary buttons.

After some more hooning, the route map is retired to the passenger footwell, alongside the bag we’d been unable to fit in the boot. After cruising down a coastal road, we spot a sign that simply reads, ‘Autodrome’…

You know we do!

By now it is nearly 5pm, and we sign off our day at the Circuito Do Estoril, formerly home to the Portuguese Grand Prix. Though we are unable to sample the car’s handling on-track, we lose nearly an hour discussing the Roadster’s merits and filling our cameras’ memory cards.

It is only as we listen to the engines tick themselves cool that the first yawn breaks the surface. None of us have enjoyed more than an hour’s sleep since setting off for work nearly two days earlier, and yet we’d hardly noticed once on the road.

Yes, empty Red Bull cans littering the footwells have helped, but the excitement of flinging a Mini around proper European roads is almost tangible, sounds of the wind rushing past only amplifying this. The tintop Coupe may have divided opinion, but here today, its Roadster counterpart certainly hasn’t >>>