2025 Mini JCW Convertible | UK Review

Only thing rarer than a petrol hot hatch? An affordable cabrio - Mini is still attempting to combine both

Small, attainable petrol performance cars are dropping off the edge of a cliff like lemmings. Barely a month passes without another cheapish PH hero being euthanised by tapering demand or constricting regulations. It’s ever more crucial to savour the ones we have and champion them, eager to prove to the folks making them that we’d very much like their efforts to continue.

You’re looking at one example now. Not only are we losing hot hatchbacks at a terrifying rate, but convertibles too. We can malign the scores of coupe-cabrios launched in the mid-noughties all day long, but surely they’re preferable to the samey SUVs which gazumped their place on the market? If you want to spend less than £40k on a mainstream drop-top now, it’s limited to the Mazda MX-5, VW T-Roc Cabrio or this, a Mini Convertible.

The John Cooper Works iteration you’re looking at achieves the ‘endangered species’ full house – an affordable performance cabriolet – making it worth a gander, however likely (or not) PHers will be queuing up to buy one. Soft-top Minis start at £28,715 in base, 163hp Cooper C form, followed by a 204hp Cooper S for three grand more. This JCW iteration commands £37,535 for its 231hp and 6.4-second dash to 62mph. All three use a 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo engine hooked exclusively to a seven-speed DCT ‘box just like you’ll find in any number of compact BMWs and Minis, the latest M135 included.

You may have read about the fourth-gen Mini JCW hatch here already, but it’s safe to say Matt Bird’s sentiments only arced upwards with more time behind the wheel. Thankfully, I’ve a long slog in this Convertible, punctuated by some genuinely dazzling roads, to try and replicate the experience.

First impressions are of a car that looks little different to before. No surprise when this F67 Convertible uses the bones of the F57 before it – exactly like the F66 petrol hatch does – just with even less shame here thanks to its carryover taillights. They perform new tricks, mind, toggling through different patterns and allowing you to (phew!) avoid the Union Flags. But they’re physically the same as their forebears; a newer, slimmer design to match the freshly platformed Mini Electric wouldn’t meet the structural needs of a cabrio. When you see how easily the latest-gen Mini interior shifts the car forward a generation, you’ll be less offended.

The vast OLED screen in the middle might stoke debate with its size and shape, but it’s a joyous thing to behold and use. It’s jam-packed with chintz – we’re in a Mini, after all – and I’m fully on board with that. Amid a swelling sea of Chinese competition, plenty of which is derivative in the extreme, I’ll always encourage Mini tooting its design horn. And at least this one’s optioned with a head-up display, so that its speed can still be projected close to your eyeline…

Which feels borderline essential when the JCW piles the stuff on so readily. It bears repeating that with 280lb ft, this is a thoroughly rapid car, its twin-clutch transmission feeling almost single-speed if you’ve left it in D, its shifts barely punctuating your breathless surge forwards. Its performance claims feel modest when the road is dry and everything is hooked up.

With some inevitability (in a drop-top on UK roads…) conditions don’t stay that way for long, however, and rain sparks the JCW into life in all manner of ways. The good, bad or ugly, depending on your disposition. Works Minis were never cars of fine nuance and nothing has changed in two decades of development. Ours was optioned on 18-inch wheels with Conti Sport Contact 7 tyres; serious kit, but on a car only too happy to judder with wheelspin under heavy throttle. So you manage your inputs as conditions shift and get stuck into keeping the car flowing forwards at perfectly presentable speeds.

With commitment, there will be torque steer at the front and oversteer at the back, though never reams of communication from the steering wheel about what’s what. You'll forever pine for both a manual gearbox and a mite more precision, but once you make your peace with the fact that neither is coming, it’s time to loosen your collar, give in to the Mini’s whims, and just have fun.

Fun is something the Convertible is especially good at encouraging. You won’t begrudge any additional shudder compared to the hatch when the JCW rides so boisterously in the first place, and although its fabric hood feels like a throwback – it requires near-standstill speeds to operate, takes a short while to fold all the way, and slices rear visibility once it’s gathered on the bootlid – refinement isn’t bad if you flip all four windows back up and adults can genuinely fit in the back. Assuming they don’t mind doing so in front of witnesses. The touchscreen includes a timer of how much time you’ve spent driving al fresco, like a step counter for sun tans, and ought to provide an equivalent nagging guilt to stow the roof as often as possible.

This JCW Convertible could topple like a house of cards under the most objective of scrutiny, but it’s fast, efficient and unfailingly eager, so long as you don’t mind the fact it’s heavier and thus nowhere near as astute or agile as a cheaper MX-5 2.0 with its smart new LSD. The John Cooper Works is better as a hatch and the Convertible calmer as a Cooper S, too. Though I reckon we all knew that going in – and this car is undeniably more of a curiosity for its oddball positioning.

It’s not unlike its distant M3 or M4 Convertible cousin, in fact. A car we’re not meant to recommend and you’re too cool to buy – though its unlikely mix of use cases may result in one sitting outside anyway, in an attempt to keep everyone in the house happy. Especially with so depressingly few alternatives on sale.

SPECIFICATION | 2025 MINI JOHN COOPER WORKS CONVERTIBLE

Engine: 1,998cc four-cylinder turbo
Transmission: 7-speed dual-clutch automatic, front-wheel drive
Power (hp): 231@5,200rpm
Torque (lb ft): 280@1,500rpm
0-62mph: 6.4 seconds
Top speed: 152mph
Weight: 1,500kg
MPG: 39.8 (WLTP combined)
CO2: 161g/km
Price: £37,535

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GreatScott2016

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