For the last 12 months PistonHeads has been running a MINI Cooper S fitted with the JCW tuning kit, and there wasn’t a day that we didn’t enjoy driving it. When the car first arrived, we weren’t too sure what to expect but there wasn’t any need to worry as the MINI impressed on track days as much as it did on our favourite B roads.
In many ways the design of the MINI remains faithful to that of the original, with a wheel in each corner providing the grin-inducing handling that the car has become famous for.
Back in July ’08 PistonHeads reviewed the MINI John Cooper Works at its UK launch, and we came away impressed. This new variant was to be the fastest MINI yet and offered some impressive figures: 211bhp from its 1.6-litre turbocharged engine, 260Nm peak torque equating to 148mph and a 0-62mph time of 6.5 seconds.
Every report we run on a MINI usually ends up with a lot of comments as debate rages over every aspect of the car. It is clear that this is a car that knows how to divide opinion.
We happened to mention these debates to the team at MINI UK, and asked if they would like to offer a new John Cooper Works to a reader so they could write their own road test for the homepage. MINI went one better and offered us ten cars and suggested that we hire Brands Hatch to give them a proper test.
This video shows what happens when 10 PHers were given Brands Hatch for a day with the intentions of delivering their verdict on the car. After watching it, head to the reviews section to see what they thought.
Please refresh the page to see it.
If after watching the video of the day at Brands Hatch you find yourself hankering after some MINI track action, you might like to get yourself down to Silverstone from May 22-24 for MINI United. Fans of new and classic MINI will be congregating in their thousands to celebrate MINI's 50th birthday, for more details see www.miniunited.com
To read the PH'ers views visit the MINI JCW Microsite
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