This bit of info came directly from MINIUSA was posted on North American Motoring. It's actually in regards to a (rather odd) rumor that MINIUSA was going to release something similar to a JCW kit for the CVT Cooper.

So according to MINIUSA here's the reasoning why the US will never see the John Cooper Works kit for the MINI Cooper:

  • It doesn't make economic sense to bring the JCW COOPER kit to the U.S.
  • The cost of the JCW COOPER kit (without installation) would be nearly as much as the $3000 price difference to get the COOPER S, while producing significantly less power than a COOPER S (COOPER = 115 HP, JCW COOPER = 130 HP, COOPER S = 163 HP)
  • The JCW COOPER kit does not work on the CVT.

For those that don't know much about the John Cooper Work tuning kit for the Cooper here's a bit of information from their site: (PDF)

None of this is really new information, and I think it's been assumed for some time by most of us, but it's nice to see it come directly from MINIUSA. A big thanks to Mark Ferguson at NAM for getting this info from the source.