There are two names that give Great Britain membership to the Swinging Sixties cool club. The first is, of course, The Beatles and the second has to be the Mini motorcar.
The Mini started off as a little British car manufactured by the British Motor Corporation and was used as a runabout when it was first manufactured in 1959. The 60s were a time when American sports cars like the Ford Mustang and the Chevy Corvette were making their mark and British marques like the MG were a glory of the past like the British Empire.
The first time Mini and John Cooper came together was in 1961 when John Cooper — a Formula 1 team owner — bored, put the original Mini engine’s cylinders, fitted oversize pistons, twin carburettors and mated the engine to a close ratio gear box. Suddenly, the Mini was on steroids and a hit on rally stages soon achieved ‘pocket rocket’ status.
The brand’s crowning glory came in 1964 when a Mini Cooper S tuned by Cooper and driven by 31-year-old Paddy Hopkirk and his co-driver Henry Liddon won the gruelling Monte Carlo Rally.
When BMW revived the brand in the early part of this century, John Cooper Works was a separate tuning entity formed by Cooper’s son Michael. But the company had BMW’s approval, so Minis spec-ed out by John Cooper Works didn’t lose warranty.
Then in 2008, BMW acquired John Cooper Works and the first factory-built JCW version of the car was released.
Last week, a version of the Mini Cooper labelled the John Cooper Works was launched in India at the Madras Motor Race track. Very apt, because the full capability of this hot hatch is truly experienced on the track. Especially the Madras Race Track whose foundation stone was laid by British F1 legend Jackie Stewart. The track is a Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile and Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme-certified circuit.
The day started off with the car being revealed to the auto writing fraternity and a presentation about the features of the new Mini JCW. This car is the top-of-the-range model for Mini in India and costs ₹43.5 lakhs (ex-showroom). While the 2.0-litre, 4-cylinder turbo-charged engine is the same physical spec of the one that powers the Mini Cooper S (available for ₹34.20 lakhs) it has been tuned to 231hp and 320Nm. The Mini Cooper S produces 193 hp and 280Nm. The gearbox is also different with the JCW getting an 8-speed automatic unit over the Cooper S’s 7-speed dual-clutch unit.
The most exciting bit was, of course, driving the car, and even more so because I first tried out the Mini Cooper S and then jumped into the Mini John Cooper Works. The difference is palpable. For starters, the exhaust burble of the JCW is notably louder, the seats hug the driver in true racing fashion and the instrument cluster and façade all scream speed and track. The extra horsepower and torque is also noticeable. The sports displays, when selected, have twin digital meters to tell the driver the amount of power and torque the engine is making.
Driving the car on the track will bring a smile on the face of any enthusiast, because it still retains that pocket rocket characteristic that made it an iconic hot hatch of the Swingin’ Sixties. The car’s rapid acceleration, tight cornering capabilities and the hard-working electronics that prevent any tangential escapades, make it a car that even a non-racing driver can enjoy throwing around the track.
And the Madras Motor Race Track is so well-designed with long straights, fast corners and two parabolas in quick succession, that it truly tests the ability of a car to barrel hard down the straights, stamp hard on the brakes and get the right angle into the corner for maximum speeds through the curves, the very kind of capability that the Mini had to beat bigger marques in the Monte Carlo Rally.
For me, it was a perfect day out in Chennai — even with the track temperatures sitting in the searing mid-fifties, the car’s effective air-conditioning, which does very little to compromise the car’s power, meant that it was an enjoyable day burning rubber around the track.
