Carshop First Drive: New MINI JCW ALL4 Countryman

They said it would be folly, trying to ignore the little power-packed SUV’s glorious rally origins. And that avoiding the fact that it has a legacy of handling as though it were glued to rails would be an insult - but here we are.

I’d spent my morning at the helm of a boggo standard 1.5-litre MINI Clubman but finally it was time to upgrade myself into the larger, fierier model. With shaky hands I grabbed my camera gear from the SMEG fridge-like boot of the Clubman and proceeded to transplant it into the robust rear end of the Countryman. Where the prior is an estate the latter is a compact SUV.

But not like a Hyundai Tucson, more GLA45 AMG.

At 225kW and 450Nm the new JCW makes circa 20% more shunt and grunt than its predecessor and by all means, needs that ALL4 all-wheel drive system to keep itself in check. Especially here on the ribbons of asphalt that meander around the Limpopo on our route from Nelspruit. The roads are the stuff of Alpine dreams, winding and ascending, ducking and diving - marred only by the occasional pothole and rut.

Thankfully the Countryman JCW has a fair amount of suspension travel for this occasion - even with the (10mm lower) Sport Suspension. Other things it has? Massive 18-inch hoops, or 19s if those won’t do. How about 10mm more girth, larger sport pipes than ever with an accompanying soundtrack. The TwinPower turbocharged 4-pot is good for a zero to hundred in just 5.1 seconds, and the JCW will ultimately max out at 250kph thanks to some constraining electronic limiters.

Staggeringly, it returns a bonkers fuel consumption figure at 7.9 l/100 km; with a similarly impressive CO2 payload of just 155 g/km. All that aforementioned power and torque is divvied up by an 8-speed Steptronic sports transmission with integrated mechanical diff lock, and then there are the larger John Cooper Works sport brakes to consider. The net result goes like this.

The CLAPPERS

Don’t be fooled by the SUV stance, when you’ve set it to Sport as I have, the John Cooper Works in any distillation or profile will not go gentle into that horizon. No, it will bloody headbutt it, and hard. The ride is firm which suits the mostly immaculate asphalt to a tee, the helm is flavourful and granular - think communicative M car and you’re there.

It’s funny to assume that in 2019, the JCW department may very well be a lad named John and his mate Cooper, working in a backroom at M Division, and forced to live on pies, gravy and warm beer. I mean it isn’t. Is it?

Anyway, here I am hard charging a low slung MINI bus making all the right noises and scaring just the right amount of onlookers in the process. Top. Fun. This.

How can one give a verdict, formulate an opinion on a performance car without looking at the price, considering its rivals - and evaluating accordingly? You can’t, so let’s just jump into it. At circa R700k its expensive. Rivals? That GLA45 I suppose, but is it really?

I’d argue that MINIs small and large are peerless things. One buys a MINI because one wants one, and we live at a time where the badge has been liberally applied to all manners of cars - and I don’t just mean size this time, but orientation. In this case a go-anywhere hot hatch with that iconic British branding. And you can charge anything you bloody like for an icon.

MINI John Cooper Works ALL4 Countryman Spec:

But what about the other hot MINIs?

Well, there’s a lot of them - with mild tweaks aplenty. For example, the new Clubman S receives a new grille, lights and mirror caps plus the Union Jack taillights. New trim extends into the interior, with a 6.5-inch touchscreen (8.8-inches are optional) dominating the cute-as-a-button dashboard and cockpit array. But you just want to know prices, so here you go:

MINI Pricing: