Mini John Cooper Works Review: Mr Cooper Should Approve

What we like:

Sticks to the road like velcro

delivers loads of fun

freakishly fast

eye-catching in this particular colour combo.

What we dislike:

Will never be as practical as other hyper hatchbacks within its price bracket

still the king of torque steer.

But when the road turns twisty and the surface uneven, things still do get a little awry. On top of the looseness, there’s also the torque steer – you need to really manhandle this car, to ensure you do not end up on the wrong side of the road. Some may find this fun, challenging even, but when it border towards “oh crap, crap, crap noooo…” you sense that you’re not driving the best Mini can do.

The brakes, on the other hand, are great. Responsive and constantly on high alert.

So all things considered, why should you buy a Mini JCW?

You know it’s a car with flaws, but because it is fast, fun, challenging to drive at times and delivers so much smiles per hour, you forgive and forget all of it.

Well it may not be as engaging or satisfying as the manual transmission, but it’s good enough at delivering the fun. It may also lack the practicality cars like the Golf R, S3 and M 135i offers, but what really impress is that it’s so downright accomplished in virtually every other areas.

Which you probably knew that already.

Credits: Story and photos by Azfar Hashim