1 week Ago By David Booth
Article content Is there a cheerier visage in the automotive world than Mini’s (not so little as it used to be) front grille. Big, bug-eyed lights, gently rounded hoodline and a gaping maw of a grille that seems affixed in a permanent smile. Were it digitized, the Mini Cooper’s face would be the Pac-Man ghosts of Adam Sandler’s truly awful Pixels , the very embodiment of the too-cute-to-be-an assassin that I think was supposed to be the premise of those one hours and 45 minutes of cinematic ennui.
That — the baby-faced assassin look, not the cinematic ennui of a 48-year-old Mr. Sandler trying to act like he’s 14 — is pretty much what Mini has always been after with its John Cooper Works. JCW Minis have been slaying giants since 1961 when John Cooper first shoved bigger valves, bigger carburetors and, thankfully, bigger brakes into otherwise unsuspecting Minis.
Ever since — watch current British vintage racing YouTube videos for proof that a barely litre-sized Mini can run away from V8-powered Fords — the little roustabouts have been terrorizing cars twice their size and displacement. Sixty-five years later, little has changed. The Mini is still diminutive (though not nearly so much as it once was), its power, 228-horsepower, relatively outsized and it still handles a little like a go-kart .
In fact, that — Go-Kart — is the name of its top-of-the-line performance “mode” where boost is maximized, traction control limited and the front tires do the crab walk that signals even gummy Continental SportContact 7s are having trouble putting its full 280 foot-pounds of torque through the front tires. In between, there’s the banging of boy-racer dual-clutch transmission banging through the gears and cornering allowed by an adaptive suspension that makes the JCW feel like, well, a modern-day “Go-Kart.” But first, the Mini’s cuteness My test unit — a full $52,990 of its Mini-ness — was destined to elicit the extended “Ahhww” normally reserved for babies and particularly well-behaved Golden Retrievers.
Besides the smiley fascia and soft, inviting rounded edges, it sports what Mini calls Nanuq White paint job the name seemingly having something to do with baby polar bears, which I guess could be considered cute until they’re, like, three hours old. But it’s the googley eyes that do it for me. Seriously, how can you resist something that seems as vulnerable as a newborn puppy? I fall for it every time.
And the fact that a Mini Cooper 3-Door JCW is actually a fearsome little beast is probably — no, exactly — the dichotomy that Mr. Sandler et al. were so gloriously missing from the awfulness that was Pixels .
Inside, it’s more of the same. How do you take a car with no instrument cluster and a big pie-shaped infotainment system seriously? Oh, such infantile considerations are tempered by the best build quality I’ve yet seen in a Mini. But stylistically, it’s like a Lego car come to life, the infotainment screen — some 9.
4 inches in diameter — all colors and odd submenus. It’s also the most colourful and graphically appealing system I’ve tested even if, like Benjamin Hunting espoused in a recent article , it’s way too busy to be truly useful. There’s also what I am assuming is a graphic representing a waving racing flag built into the dashboard, matching the one decal-ed into the front hood.
There’s also matching piping on the very comfortable bucket seats and a centre console bin best described as a steampunk lunchbox. Like I said, super endearing. All that said, cuteness comes at a price.
The rear seats are at their most useful when they’re folded and even though the touchscreen is huge, there aren’t enough nearly enough pixels therein to make simple chores like changing radio stations convenient. There just isn’t enough digital real estate to handle all the tasks asked. Channel surfing was way down the informational hierarchy, I guess.
There’s no stick in the new Mini Latter day Minis are notable for the absence of a manual transmission, the only gearbox available a seven-speed dual clutch DCT affair. Normally, I’d rejoice in its absence, most times finding the purists love of old-school transmissions a remembrance of past that was not nearly as glorious as remembered. But, for once, I am with the traditionalists and do lament the lack of a stick shift and a metallic gate.
Minis, even 2025 models with go-faster intentions, are always a walk down memory lane, which means a clutch and a dog bone would, for once, be totally appropriate. And, for some reason I can’t fathom — this is, after all, the most boy-racerish of all Minis — if you leave the JCW in Eco mode, you will have even more reason to lament the lack of stick since the software that controls the speed of those computer-controlled automated shifts more old-fart Mercedes than boy-racer John Cooper. In all but Go-Kart mode, the transmission shifts itself and takes its bloody time about it.
Soulful, but synthetic soundtrack Toggle through to Go-Kart, however, and things get decidedly spicier. All of the turbocharged 2.0-litre four’s 228 horses are available toute de suite as throttle response and boost are more immediate.
The Mini now fairly jumps off the line and the DCT, previously so lethargic, bangs through shifts as quickly as you can paddle the behind-the-steering-wheel toggles. It’s big fun even if the various boom, pops and bangs — designed to emulate the cacophony caused by raw fuel being burned in the hot exhaust system in old, imprecisely-fueled carbureted engines — are all synthetically created by computer and speaker. At least, the subterfuge is convincing.
Owners will know that it’s all faux combustion, but I’m not sure that those riding along will catch on to the skulduggery. Especially since the only time you get the full pop, crackle and pop operatics is when you’re full on the gas. Even if the JCW is most definitely not a supercar — it’s six-second sprint to 100 km/h takes about twice as long as even the humblest of Ferraris — there is much drama to be had.
Go-Kart mode minimizes the stability control system — it even asks you if you’re sure you want to “activate” Go-Kart — which means the front wheels can, as I said, get pretty loosey-goosey, there not being enough traction even from the oversized 215/40R18 Contis to keep the little Mini on the perfectly straight and narrow. Punch it hard coming out of a second gear corner and the steering wheel will start doing a little dance in your fingertips. Then that soundtrack, as artificial as it might be, is actually worth it.
All that sound and fury might distract you from what are a few oversights on Mini’s part. For one thing, there is no tachometer. Not in the instrument panel, of which, there is none.
Nor in the circular infotainment screen which would seem perfectly shaped to mimic an analogue tach. Oh, there is a horsepower and torque meter that, in Go-Kart mode, are the predominant displays, but no discernible indication of how many revs the little 2.0-litre Turbo is churning.
I’ve heard a few skeptics opine it’s because the turbocharged engine — basically a BMW B58 inline six with two pistons lopped off — doesn’t spin particularly hard and that’s as good a supposition as any. Worse yet, even though the digital horsepower readout regularly touched its rated 228-hp maximum, my tester’s torque-o-meter never saw higher than 272 pound-feet, some eight lb-ft shy of the JCW’s rated maximum. I’m not sure if the calibration was wrong or if Mini is telling fibs, but I don’t think it’s the best marketing to claim a performance figure and then have your infotainment system display its paucity in big, fat, blocky numerics.
(Almost) Go-Kart-like handling With a wheelbase of just 2,495 millimetres — and not much overhang at all, front or rear — the JCW is, when Go-Kart mode stiffens the suspenders, pretty darned darty. Oh, it’s not quite as quick to flick as the old — and dearly-departed — supercharged 1.6L supercharged version, but 1,382 kilograms is, by today’s standards at least, positively miniscule.
There’s also loads of grip — even in the wet — except when you’re hammering the throttle mid-corner. And, even when things get a bit understeery, you can always bring it back with just a tad less throttle. The JCW might well run out of handling if you took it to a big track like Mosport — where the almost mile-long would also eat up all of its horsepower — but on tighter, twistier roads, be they closed course or public, the JCW-ed Mini is, as it always was, much more capable than its diminutive size and winsome looks might indicate.
Perhaps no longer a giant killer, it’s still a barrel of fun. But it’s also decidedly more grown up. Prise away the bodywork, ignore the Fisher Price-like tablet in the centre dashboard and tone down the Fake Exhaust and what you’re left with is a really small, front-wheel-drive BMW .
The ride is excellent, the interior is exquisitely stitched up and the switchgear almost adult-like. It even, when the back seats are folded, can carry a couple of weeks’ worth of groceries (more like three days if the seats are in situ). And I suspect that’s what modern Mini customers want.
Purists can lament the lack of a stick all they want, but the manual transmission hasn’t succumbed to some global automotive conspiracy against clutches but consumer apathy for exercising their left leg. The aforementioned supercharged 1.6-litre four may have indeed revved higher and harder, but it probably couldn’t pass either emissions or fuel economy regulations.
And lament all you like that the Mini is not nearly as lithe as it once was, but it is at least somewhat roomier. Indeed, complain all you like that the “new” Mini isn’t quite as engaging as Coopers of even 20 years ago or that they don’t quite sing like they used to, but know this: In some time not so distant, they’ll all be electric. In other words, if you’ve always yearned for a maximum Mini, sooner rather than later might be the action plan.
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