MINI JCW

Hot hatch joins our fleet and immediately hits the track

- Alastair Crooks

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.

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.

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.