Long-term test: MINI John Cooper Works

As anyone that’s owned a BMW-manufactured MINI this century will understand, I’ve had my fair share of comments about how “it’s too big for MINI”. But I think the proportions and sizing of my MINI are perfect – any smaller and you’re bordering on the seriously impractical (I recently found out I can fit in the back), but any larger and you’ll cause some MINI purists to properly start frothing at the mouth.

MINI John Cooper Works: first report

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Hot hatch joins our fleet and immediately hits the track

• Mileage: 2,167 miles
• Efficiency: 37.4mpg

Having bid farewell to the KGM Actyon, a much smaller replacement has found its way onto my driveway – the new MINI JCW. Those three letters stand for ‘John Cooper Works’, signalling that this is the hottest version of the MINI Cooper. And while there’s also a pure-electric JCW option, we’ve gone for a petrol-powered hot hatch. 

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The electric JCW and our car might share the same styling (aside from the prominent and rather excellent central-exit exhaust), but underneath they sit on different platforms. The MINI Electric uses a specific architecture, while the F66-generation MINI JCW with a petrol engine is based on a revised version of the previous-generation car’s platform. 

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Our car is very much an evolution of the old model, with the same BMW-derived engine sending power to a seven-speed DCT. How much power? Well, the 228bhp figure remains unchanged, but there’s more torque now – up from 320Nm before to 380Nm now. The resulting 6.1-second 0-62mph time is 0.2 seconds quicker than before and it’ll top out at 155mph – all rather impressive for a MINI. 

Straight-line performance is all well and good in a hot hatch, but for a MINI (and especially the JCW), cornering is king. To put my car through its paces, I fancied a track day, but sadly I’d left it too late to get a spot on one of sister title evo’s hugely popular events. So instead, I checked out Ollie’s Secret Track Days. 

The tight and twisty Curborough Sprint Course in Staffordshire seemed the ideal location for the compact MINI to show us what it’s got. Even better, drivers went out one at a time, so I could concentrate on exploring the MINI’s abilities by myself. Before starting, I had to adjust the JCW’s drive modes – cheesily called ‘Experiences’. 

This is a little more involved than you think, because you have to use the toggle on the dash to find the ‘John Cooper Works’ mode, then wait for ‘activate go-kart mode’ (yes, seriously) to flash up on the screen. You then tap the tiny rev-counter so that the boost gauge and oil temperature readouts appear, along with the G-force meter. Once you initiate the mode, the MINI’s speakers also let out an irritating “woohoo” – which I turned off on the first day I had the car.

On my opening run, I could tell the MINI had plenty of grip – only if I pushed it to extremes would it get out of shape. The JCW’s damping is exceptionally firm on the road (something we’ll cover more later on), but on a track it helped the MINI feel nimble, as did the typically MINI-like darty steering. Confidence levels were up as a result, so I pushed harder, attempting to really test the balance of the JCW through Curborough’s chicane. 

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While I was having plenty of fun, there were some elements of the MINI JCW that frustrated. I quickly learned that if I was to keep the transmission in manual mode via the paddles during a run, I’d have to start in second gear, because trying to change gear on the opening tight corner (or any corner, for that matter) is very fiddly, thanks to the MINI’s tiny gearshift paddles hiding behind that fat-rimmed steering wheel. 

The transmission itself isn’t the best either. Towards the end of the day I found it better to leave it in automatic mode, because it often ignored my manual inputs. There’s a slight issue with the engine on track too. You don’t notice it much on the road, but wringing out every bhp can be tough when the gearbox often grabs a higher gear than you’d like. 

However, to the car’s credit, even after a full day of hard driving, the MINI JCW didn’t bat an eyelid. The temperatures and brakes all looked and felt good at the end.

*Insurance quote from AA (0800 107 0680) for a 42-year-old in Banbury, Oxon, with three points.

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