2017 Mini Cooper S - John Cooper Works A Doubleclutch.ca Review.
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00:00I've never been a huge fan of minis, not that I had anything against them, but I just never
00:09really bothered spending any time with one.
00:12I've driven a few in the past, including a Restomod original mini, but this particular
00:16one, the John Cooper Works 3-Door, has really captured the kid in me.
00:21I for one think it looks great.
00:23Yes, it's rather long and not entirely... a mini, but it has a great stance and some
00:28playful styling, except for the rims, which look like plastic hubcaps.
00:32Thankfully, these minis are massively customizable, so you have lots of choice if you don't like
00:37what you see here.
00:38Now, this one, being the daddy of all minis, the JCW, has some pretty serious performance
00:44credentials.
00:45It does 0-60 in 5.9 seconds and will hit a top speed of 246 kmh, or 153 mph.
00:54It does have electric power steering, but frankly, it feels better than what BMW is
00:58putting in its regular cars these days.
01:00But before we test it, I'm going to start with the options.
01:04I don't usually do this.
01:05As you know, I'm more of a kind of take it, drive it, and see how it goes kind of guy,
01:09but this has to be talked about.
01:10Now, the base price is $33,700, which really isn't actually that bad.
01:15If you think about it, that's about the same price as a Subaru BRZ, and as you'll see a
01:20little bit later, this car is pretty much as fun as that, and a lot faster, okay?
01:26Now, we have a visibility package.
01:28Rear view camera, park distance, $1,300.
01:30You don't need that.
01:31Cancel that out.
01:32Dynamic damper control, that's very cool.
01:34With comfort access, this is the loaded package, another $1,200.
01:38Wired navigation, $1,000.
01:40Don't need that.
01:41Upholstery, Dynamica cloth combination, $2,250.
01:47Sport automatic transmission with paddles is $1,600.
01:51Now as you'll see in a minute, it is worth it.
01:53I love a manual, but this is a good transmission.
01:55Okay, hold on.
01:56Harman Kardon sound system, which isn't actually that impressive, $750.
02:01Satellite radio, $450, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
02:03The black bonnet stripes are $150.
02:05That's worth it.
02:06You gotta have those.
02:07Now, that comes to $46,000.
02:08However, there are a bunch of standalone options on this Mini.
02:13Let's start with the carbon fiber tailpipe finishers.
02:17Those are $338.65 each, okay?
02:21They look very cool, but that's a lot of money.
02:24The JCW floor mats, which look really good, actually, are $130, $110.
02:29Additional headlights, the black LEDs, $575.
02:32Still haven't figured out how to turn those on in here.
02:33We've got door sill stripes, $300.
02:35Now, none of this matters.
02:37None of those options matter except for the JCW Pro exhaust system.
02:42This is an aftermarket option, and it costs $1,965.
02:49That's a lot of money for an exhaust.
02:51I'm going to start the car now, and I'm going to pull up what is effectively a nuclear launch
03:00trigger.
03:01Look at this.
03:02Okay?
03:03This is a portable trigger.
03:04It wirelessly sends a message to the exhaust system.
03:08When I double-click this, it opens up the exhaust ports, and it makes the exhaust incredibly
03:16violent and very loud.
03:21Do you have any idea what this does to the eight-year-old inside of me?
03:28It's time to go drive this car, because this is actually a deeply impressive vehicle.
03:34I actually completely adore this Mini.
03:51The Mini goes around corners in a deeply impressive way.
03:58This is on snow tires right now.
04:00I'm not even on a stiff sidewall performance tire, and it still just feels like this little
04:04four-square thing on the road.
04:06It refuses to lean or flip.
04:09All it wants to do is turn you around a really, really tight corner, just like pulling out
04:14from a red light and turning right onto the road is fun.
04:17There's clearly a meeting at some point where they said, we need to make this car fun.
04:23That is the primary concern for the JCW Mini, is it must be fun.
04:28That was the first thing that they talked about, because everything in the car is designed
04:32to give you a fun experience.
04:34There's lights.
04:35Things light up.
04:36There's ambient lighting.
04:37You change the modes.
04:38Things get red or things get green.
04:39The steering stiffens up.
04:40The shifts are great.
04:41The sound that's coming in is amazing.
04:42I've got this exhaust button that I can push, and it makes the car louder, and it's fast.
04:50This is the B48 motor, 228 horsepower and 230-something pound-feet of torque.
04:56It's enough, is the answer.
04:58This is a peach of a motor.
05:00It really is.
05:01It's the same as the B58 that you get in the 340i BMW with two cylinders lopped off of
05:06it.
05:07This is the same engine, direct injection, twin-scroll turbocharger that you get in the
05:11BMW 330i that I tested recently.
05:15I love that engine, and I love that transmission, and this feels very similar to that.
05:19There's actually no lag that I can tell.
05:22Third gear, 4,000 RPM, boom, right there.
05:25It's immediate.
05:26Excellent, excellent engine.
05:30It sounds good, too.
05:32There are some four-cylinder turbocharged cars that really, really, really don't sound good
05:36at all, Camaro.
05:40This one sounds excellent.
05:41Obviously, there's some stuff being synthetically piped into the car, which gets louder in sport
05:45mode, but I have my exhaust, which causes ridiculous backfires, and that's worth every
05:51penny.
05:52You've got to get that.
05:53You don't need navigation.
05:54You don't need a sunroof.
05:55You do need that $2,000 remote-triggered nuclear exhaust.
05:59Yes, now it's obviously front-wheel drive.
06:03That is not an issue at all, because whatever sort of vectoring is going on, you can plant
06:09your foot coming out of a corner like this.
06:11It just digs the front end, puts the power down, and off you go.
06:15Now, thankfully, the automatic transmission in this is just pretty much amazing, right?
06:23There's no other way for it.
06:25Look at that.
06:27Like nothing.
06:29The shifts are so fast for a non-DCT transmission, and the worst that I can do is 10 liters per
06:38hundred kilometers.
06:40The worst that I can do.
06:41Yes, obviously it can do much better than that, and I got it way down lower on the highway
06:45when I was actually trying to be economical.
06:46That didn't last very long, if I'm honest.
06:48It doesn't weigh very much, obviously, right?
06:50It is a Mini.
06:51No, it's not nearly as Mini as the old Minis.
06:54We all know that.
06:55I don't need to be told that again by everybody.
06:58However, the advantage to this Mini being not very Mini is that if you get in a car
07:03accident, you won't die.
07:05In terms of interior space, it's pretty good.
07:07I feel a little bit cramped sometimes.
07:09The bolsters.
07:10There's a nice spot for my arm here.
07:12That's fine.
07:13This armrest, I find, gets in my way more than it helps me, so I've been keeping it
07:16up and out of the way.
07:18The rest of the interior is quite usable.
07:21It really is.
07:22Some of the buttons and switches are a little bit confusing at first, but the system in
07:26the center here, my little wheel, is just basically the same as iDrive and BMW.
07:32It's pretty intuitive.
07:34It's not quite as obvious how to use it as iDrive is, but it's a pretty good system.
07:39I haven't had an issue navigating around it, and there's a lot of menus and a lot of things
07:44that you can configure in this car.
07:46Turn around.
07:47Turn around.
07:48A little hairpin.
07:49Oh my god.
07:50Yep.
07:51You can feel the front start to push a little bit under power, but it manages the torque
07:55so quickly and just keeps that front end turning in and in and in.
07:59It feels like it's being pulled in around the corner.
08:03With stickier tires on the front and a more aggressive alignment, this would be an excellent
08:07autocross car, actually.
08:09It's fairly wide, but it just changes directions so quickly, and it feels short this way.
08:15It doesn't feel like a big, long car.
08:17You can feel the wheelbase in it.
08:19It's just fun.
08:20It's just fun to drive.
08:22The steering wheel is really nicely shaped.
08:25It's very small.
08:26The steering in the car is actually very good.
08:29Is it a fast rack?
08:30Yes, it actually is.
08:32It's not as fast as the older ones, but it is still a much quicker rack than just a regular
08:37car that you would be used to.
08:39All of that together with the heavy steering weight, the way that they've managed to put
08:43the power to the ground in the front, means that this car just feels rock-solidly planted
08:48to the ground in almost all scenarios.
08:50I found that it seems to tend to naturally oversteer a little bit if you start to push
08:57it.
08:58You come off the throttle, and the front end doesn't want to let go.
09:02It just keeps digging and digging and digging, even with snow tires.
09:04I've lost some of the sharpness because of the snow tires, but it's still very obvious
09:09how the chassis is and where the center of gravity is.
09:11It feels wide and low, and that is one of the best feelings that you can have in a little
09:16car.
09:17This car does not seem to be a usual contender for all the rest of the hot hatches, the Golf
09:23GTI and the Focus ST.
09:25You always see videos and people talking about those cars, but they don't bring this one
09:28in.
09:29I would have this one.
09:30Honestly, I would have this over a GTI.
09:32I would have this over a Focus ST.
09:35I think it's more fun.
09:37It's a more exciting car to drive.
09:39Everything about the driving experience was designed to be fun.
09:44Not very many cars prioritize full-on fun over everything else.
09:50This MINI absolutely does that.
09:52So there we go.
09:54The three-door JCW MINI.
09:56This is a car that I would happily own.