Mini Cooper S vs. Hummer H2

Low-rise blue jeans were hot stuff on young women last year. This year, they're so 2003. In ought-three, you wore a three-button suit with double-pleated trousers. This fall, go plain-front two-button and haul that Armani off to the Salvation Army. Out, "The Apprentice," in, "The Office." Out, CD players, in, Mini iPods.

What about 2003's hottest new automotive fashions, the Mini Cooper S and the Hummer H2? Say you refused to pay 20 percent above sticker just to be first on the block or you were 153rd in line at the Mini dealer for the special-edition model with Peter Sellers's signature wicker door trim. Or say the Hummer dealer had you on the waiting list behind Minnesota Viking Chris Claiborne, Cleveland Cavalier LeBron James, and Cher and Funkmaster Flex?

Now that you can get one, are the Mini and the H2 still hip? Your humble servants here at Motor Trend have sailed the choppy seas of modern-car culture in search of the answer. We drove a 2004 Hummer H2 and 2004 Mini Cooper S to our Michigan office's closest cultural outpost--Chicago--hunting for truth and beauty in the modern automotive world. Imagine two models, one wearing a miniskirt, the other wearing designer army fatigues. Who's in style? Who gets all the attention?

We began by asking Stephan, owner of the hottest night club in Chicago that no one can get in to, the Sound Bar, which of our extreme duo he would valet park out front. "Neither of them, because we get a lot of Lamborghinis and Ferraris. So the H2 and the Mini would be parked out back."

"Uh, okay, of these two, at least when they were first introduced, which would you park in front?"

"Probably the Hummer, because I don't like BMWs, even though I'm German."

"You're a Mercedes guy?"

"No. I like Porsches now. I have a Cayenne Turbo."