Video: Rally-spec Mini does a backflip

If you're a car fan, you can't fail to have heard of Ken Block's frankly amazing driving stunts. First seen on Top Gear, The American WRC driver has gone on to release a selection of slickly produced videos, where he drifts his specially adapted Ford Fiesta round difficult courses.

Well, it seems MINI wants a piece of the action, using France's very own stunt-performer in the form of rally driver Guerlain Chicherit.
High achiever in the gruelling 2010 Paris Dakar rally, Chicherit has teamed up with Gravi-t, The Freestyle Rally Team, MINI and John Cooper Works (JCW) for this daredevil adventure.

Effectively, Chicherit is attempting the first ever unassisted back flip in a car - using his MINI Countryman JCW as the vehicle of choice. The Countryman strikes us an odd selection, mind, surely it's undoubtedly bigger and probably a bit heavier than the standard hatch.

Still, with its taller stance, stripped out interior and race-spec engine that looks like it's in the rear of the car (presumably for the sake of balance), we can only conclude it's quite a different driving experience to the Countryman JCW that we borrowed recently.

This is the first in what looks like a series of videos, as the ending is left rather up in the air - literally!

No doubt MINI will fill us in with the final instalment eventually, but until then, enjoy the video below: