Winding Road Reports on the new JCW (And Gets it Mostly Wrong)
We are big fans of Winding Road. But even one of the better auto publications out there sometimes can get it wrong. In reporting on the new JCW factory MINI, not only do they get some key facts incorrect about the previous JCW kit, but they can’t seem to get their figures right on the new car either.
For starters they claim the new JCW kit will be retrofittable at dealers for around $5000. We can report that this is 100% incorrect. We can only assume they got confused somewhere in between the prevous JCW kit (which originally was just over $5K retrofitted) and the current JCW dealer installed kit which is $2100.
Then they claim the new JCW factory car will start around $2000 more than the standard MINI coupe and Clubman. Again we believe they got confused used the figures provided to them by MINI that correspond with the currently available dealer installed JCW kit.
And finally Winding Road tells us to expect a follow-up GP with around 225 hp in 2009. Again we can confirm (somewhat saddly we might add) that there will be no 225 hp MINI with the letters G or P in it, released in 2009.
But if you insist on reading Winding Road’s article on the new JCW car, be our guest.
<blockquote>…there will be no 225 hp MINI with the letters G or P in it, released in 2009.</blockquote>
LOL… that has some sort of hidden meaning in there. 😀
<blockquote>… that has some sort of hidden meaning in there. </blockquote>
…one can only hope
Maybe this indicates just how confusing MINIs strategy is for the average guy in the street … JCW kit from dealer, JCW from factory – totally different things but both called JCW.
Do they have M3 upgrades from dealers, and M3+ kits from the factory?
<blockquote>…there will be no 225 hp MINI with the letters G or P in it, released in 2009.</blockquote>
It would be odd if they did make another GP in 2009 since the factory JCW is a 2009 model.
I’ll be the MINI HQ. You know, one better than the GP.
Still hoping for a one off 50th car next year. hopping so because the Factory car has well undershot my expectations.
’09 is the 50th anniversary. We’ll certainly get some special release that year. My bet is we’ll at least get napkins with mini design sketches on them.
Good point Ian C.
MINI has created a very confusing merketing strategy.
there will be no GP in 2009
That’s too bad. I really like Winding Road.
I did find it odd that they had a full article in this last issue that was released the day the info was made available online.
Although it’s digital, it does take time to lay those things out. I just assumed that they had the info early and were holding off because of some sort of press embargo (I haven’t read the article yet). I guess they either had a bad source or made some bad assumptions.
I hope they print a retraction.
saw it yesterday at the car show must admit did not like it prefer the standard mini cooper S
why do these cars look like 4×4 off-road machines?
Drop them already dammit