It was weirdly easy to forget about the outgoing F56 John Cooper Works. There wasn’t much fundamentally wrong with Mini’s 231hp hot hatch, except that it was dynamically outgunned for much of its life cycle by the sparklier Ford Fiesta ST and Hyundai i20 N, which both managed to waltz off with the ‘fun to drive’ supermini bragging rights. That was all well and good while it lasted, of course - right up until Ford and Hyundai unceremoniously ditched the Fiesta ST and i20 N for being too flagrantly old school to live.
Kudos to BMW then for not doing the same (despite the fact that the battery-electric Mini is already well-established and now very definitely the focus of the three-door lineup). We knew the British-built, petrol-powered JCW was returning for one more bite of the apple, and while its official unveiling isn’t due till the autumn, the model’s first motorsport appearance (it is due to feature in the SP 3T class at N24 later this month) clearly dictated an early preview of the design changes.
Pleasingly, this sticks with the tried and tested method: it’s a BMW Mini, but with the styling volume turned up. That includes the weirdly pinched back end, sadly - although we quite like it from the front, where there’s a more assertive grille and chunkier intakes. Needless to say, some of what you’re looking at should be taken with a pinch of competitive salt (this is the JCW ‘PRO’ version after all, and will be run by Bulldog Racing team in bespoke camouflage at Nürburgring-Nordschleife) but the basics are very much all there and it speaks to rerun of the model’s established characteristics.
As you might imagine, this isn’t a coincidence: underneath, the new model shares much with its predecessor, and while BMW is saving all the technical details for its official launch, the JCW is expected to retain the 2.0-litre turbocharged motor and the same mechanical layout - albeit in updated format. Hopefully, that will mean a bit more power and (if we’re lucky) some additional vim from the front-drive chassis. Although, on the basis that there is also an EV version in the works, probably we should just count ourselves lucky that the combustion JCW is returning to showrooms at all. For the first time in a very long while, Mini has the go-faster supermini segment virtually to itself.
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