WORKS A CHARM?

John Cooper Works Mini lands at MOTOR’s HQ

- John Cooper

I’VE COME TO view Mini as BMW’s Trojan horse, slyly sneaking the notion of front-wheel drive into the hallowed halls of Munich. Let’s not forget that BMW was once a company so proud of it’s rear-wheel-drive heritage that it produced a series of advertisements that mocked drive going to the front treads. That has changed. BMW’s 128ti is now a front-drive hot hatch, and a very good one at that. Driving that car had piqued my curiosity. If the 128ti was that good, how woulda properly hot Mini hatch stack up as a long-term proposition?

So the latest addition to MOTOR’s garage is an Island Blue JCW hatch, all 170kW and 320Nm of attitude balled up in a stem to stern length of 3872mm. As much as we like to park Minis next to the originals and claim that they’re huge these days, it’s worth noting that this three-door is still nearly 200mm shorter than a Ford Fiesta ST. It’s dinky.