AUSmotive Reviews the JCW MINI

Our good friend Liam at AUSmotive had a chance to drive the new JCW MINI on Australian soil and came away rather impressed. Here’s an excerpt:
>Engine and transmission are very well matched and, for a car with so few kilometres on it, its willingness to work high in the rev range—a previous MINI strength—was a delight. And the torque! Usually with a 1.6 litre engine you would think the only way to make sure desired progress was not impeded would be through precise gear changes. However, the torque in the John Cooper Works makes the car virtually foolproof. Corners I would take in my supercharged Cooper S in second gear, for example, could be taken in third in the JCW, or even fourth at a pinch.
>I’ve deliberately steered clear of reading overseas reviews of the John Cooper Works so as not to have my own expectations altered. I have seen a few headlines though, and therefore I had reason to expect some pretty bad torque steer. Pleasantly, in my drive I could not really fault the car in this regard. Maybe, with more time, the reported torque steer would be more noticeable. Torque steer on the R53 Cooper S was never really an issue. The regular R56 Cooper S, however, does exhibit some torque steer, so with more power one would not be surprised if the JCW showed even more. So far though, nothing overly negative to report from my experiences to date.
+ Drive Thru: MINI John Cooper Works / AUSmotive
2 Comments
Good review Liam, think the overview is a good take on the total car. I believe Liam did hit what has bugged me about this car since details started coming out, its a solid build but really is far short of being much that I would consider special. The power is good though not great, ditto for the handling. I still think that Mini should have taken the GP path and pushed the “performance” side of the equation a bit further.
Have about 1000 miles on my 09 JCW. I last had an ’03 Cooper S. There is a bit of torque steer on the JCW not really evident on the R53 – but nothing like my old turbo Saab! On an otherwise fantastic car so far, the only distressing thing is how much the car goes out of shape on bumps, expansion joints, etc. on turns. Feels like you are going to catapult off the pavement!