Motoring Middle East: Car news, Reviews and Buying guides

Manic little Mini is a hoot, but leave it for the track-heads

By Shahzad Sheikh

Imagine a crazed little dog with its tale on fire. Then imagine riding it. That’ll give you some idea of what I’m doing right now.

I’m in the Mini John Cooper Works GP edition – one of a limited run of 2000 cars. It’s properly mental.

But what is it? Well there was one before in 2006, but this one is a much more hard core effort.

The tech

Take a regular John Cooper Works Mini hatch, replace the suspension with adjustable coil-overs providing a 20mm range, and lower it by 20mm a the front and 15mm at the back and increase spring rates by 50%.

Power is up to 220bhp from the regular car’s 211 thanks to engine modifications. Twin-scroll turbos see 207lb ft of torque through the front wheels through a six-speed manual gearbox giving a 0-100kph time of 6.3seconds (0.2 second quicker than a JCW) and a fractionally faster 250kph.

There are larger and stronger brakes on the front – 330mm vented discs with six-piston fixed callipers compared to four pistons on the JCW – with standard anchors at the back. It’s got lighter alloy wheels and fatter rubber.

There’s no mechanical limited-slip differential (LSD) like the last one, instead it gets an electronic system that works with the traction control to simulate the same effect – sort of like a torque vectoring system.

Apart from the racy decals on the grey paintwork (it only comes in grey), there’s bigger bumpers and skirts and a rear wing and diffuser that is said to cut drag by 6% but lowers lift at over 100kph by 90%.

Inside the there’s no rear seats – a brace bar right across the back – with Recaro front seats and GP badging. Options and standard equipment are minimal to keep weight down.

The drive

To drive, it’s fantastic. The torque is phenomenal, the grip is impressive, the turn-in and response is trigger-happy and you find you have to be very sensitive to steering inputs because if you so much as think about going right, it will already have flitted 90-degree to starboard and scampered down the road, before you’ve realised what’s happened!

Steering weighting is good, but feel and feedback could be better. That’s not an issue though, because in a small car like this sitting so low to ground, you can feel EVERYTHING anyway, and every last millimetre of the car telegraphs exactly what’s happening back to your buttocks very effectively indeed!

The brakes are so fierce they can bring up your lunch, and the gearbox is nice and easy to use with good short-throw changes and a decent action. The only bit I struggled with was heel-and-toeing – the peddles weren’t quite positioned quite right for my size 11s.

Of course driving any performance car can get you into trouble. Particularly when it makes a visual statement like this GP does, wants to go ten-tenths even to the shops and responds to throttle inputs like a horse to a spur.

That also applies when cornering. It’ll squeal the front wheels even as it furiously defeats understeer, then you lift off and the back end feels like it wants to come around and see what’s going on for itself.

Having said that, the limits are so accessible and well within the abilities of most drivers to tame, making this one of the most happily exploitable cars out there. You don’t feel like you’re going to kill yourself, you aren’t really going that fast, and you don’t need to be Ahmed Alamri to be man-handling it.

The verdict

Shahzad seal of approval then? No brainer, just go buy it, right?

Not so fast there! Unless you plan to keep it for track days, and you actually do spend a lot of time on a circuit, this is far too much of a compromise. The ride is rock hard and fidgety – it’ll even find ruts in the road and follow them instead of your where you wanted to go, so it’s quite a bit of hard work driving it on a daily basis.

You also lose a lot of practicality with the deletion of those rear seats, sure they’re not the most spacious, but they can be used for children or in a passenger-carrying emergency. And if you only want a two-seater, why not buy the Mini Coupe?

In fact, considering it costs AED180,000 and you can have a JCW hatch (manual) for AED10k less at AED170k (auto is AED175k) or a JCW Coupe for AED175k you’re better off buying the regular versions. They are far more user-friendly and comfortable daily-drivers, that’ll make you feel like a GP driver all the time, not just on track days.

The regular JCWs provide – 90-95% of the same performance and driving fun I promise you, plus they’re more tolerable and you can also cruise around in them casually, whereas the GP feels like it needs to be spanked ALL THE TIME.

There’s your verdict then on the GP. Great car. Glad to know it exists. If you like it, buy a regular John Cooper Works Mini, that’s what I’d do – read about that car here.

2013 Mini John Cooper Works GP
Specs
Price: AED180,000 ($49k)
Engine: 1.6-litre four-cylinder, 220bhp @ 6000rpm, 207lb ft @ 2000rpm
Performance: 6.3secs 0-100kph (est), 250kph (est), 11.8L/100
Transmission: Six-speed manual only, front-wheel drive
Weight: 1190kg

Would you have a Mini GP, the regular John Cooper Works version, or something else completely? Tell us below