MINI John Cooper Works, sportiness with a new style and improved equipment

The MINI range kicked off this year with a facelift that, while not especially profound, was necessary to keep it up to date, particularly in terms of technology, and sales began at the start of last month. Now these changes reach the sporty version of the 3-door MINI, the ever-desirable John Cooper Works.

Although the MINI John Cooper Works has a distinctive look compared with the rest of the range, under this sportiness it adopts the changes received by the rest of the line. At the front, a new hexagonal grille appears which, on this version, has a red line running through it. Thanks to this new grille, the bumper has also been modified and now features larger air intakes, ensuring better cooling of the various mechanical components. Incidentally, on the MINI JCW the front light cluster will also come LED as standard.

Looking at the sides of the MINI John Cooper Works, we can see a continuity between the door panels and those of the side skirts, giving a greater sense of fluidity. At the rear, the panels blend together more harmoniously with the redesigned rear diffuser, which now optimises the airflow reaching the underside of the rear end more effectively. As standard it includes 17-inch aluminium alloy wheels and, optionally, two designs in 18-inch sizes.

Inside the MINI JCW, the new central instrument panel with the 8.8-inch touchscreen is also introduced, featuring a black design as standard. It receives a new operating system with more intuitive handling and, for the first time, incorporates Live Widgets that can be swiped across the screen. For this model specifically, this screen and the multifunction instrument display located on the steering column as an option can be shown in Lounge mode, in blue and turquoise tones, and in Sport mode with red and anthracite backgrounds. In this latter mode the screen colour changes according to the throttle and steering characteristics and, optionally, the damping and gear-shift behaviour.

Mechanically, the MINI John Cooper Works remains just as exciting thanks to the 2.0-litre four-cylinder TwinPower Turbo engine, which delivers 231 CV and 320 Nm of torque. It can be paired with a six-speed manual gearbox as standard or an 8-speed Steptronic Sport automatic, allowing it to accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in 6.1 seconds. With this engine the MINI JCW returns a consumption figure of between 7.1 and 6.8 l/100 km, together with CO2 emissions of between 161 and 155 g/km, figures according to the WLTP test cycle.

To help with dynamics, it comes as standard with sport suspension with specific settings. However, if we want even more sportiness and comfort, we can always opt for the adaptive suspension, which has been redesigned; this adaptive suspension now works with a damping force more than 10% higher than in previous versions. Braking is handled by a Brembo-signed braking system as standard, with ventilated discs and four-piston brake calipers painted red, while a powerful sound is guaranteed thanks to the stainless steel exhaust system that ends in two 85 mm tailpipes.