One of the perks in my line of work is that I get to drive some of the world’s most spectacular cars. Ferraris, Bentleys, Aston Martins. I often wonder what my neighbours think when I pull up in one of those roaring beasts – they must assume I got lucky in crypto.
These machines are wondrous: heritage and adrenalin, power-distilled into metal and carbon fibre. And yet, if I’m completely honest, I am never happier than when I slip behind the wheel of a slightly ludicrous hot hatch.
My first car in the UAE was a temperamental Abarth 595 Competizione. I loved that car with foolish devotion. Every time I walked past it, my heart lifted. It had personality, character and, most importantly, it was unassuming to the casual observer.
In time, life evolves. I became a father. Now I drive a sensible Jeep. It’s reliable. It gets the job done. But it does not make my pulse catch when I return to it after an errand. You know what does? The new Mini John Cooper Works.
To the uninitiated, the Mini JCW looks like any Mini – retro lines, compact proportions, Union Jack tail-lights and cheeky British charm. But “just another Mini” it is not. Think of it as the Jack Russell of cars: small, wiry, alert and packed with pent-up nerve endings.
The latest generation Mini John Cooper Works – named after the famed British racing driver and engineer who helped lead Minis to racing success in the 1960s – is a technical marvel, a tightrope act between city liveability and track-edge mischief.
Under its hood sits a 2.0-litre inline-4 turbocharged engine, factory-tuned by JCW, producing 231 horsepower and a stout 280Nm of torque. That torque bump is meaningful – especially in mid-range, it changes the car’s character, making overtaking easier and making the car feel livelier in everyday driving.
There is no longer an option for a manual transmission in the 2025 JCW – it comes with a 7-speed dual-clutch automatic (DCT) as the only choice. The car accelerates from 0 to 100kph in about 6.1 seconds, which might not seem like much in the era of electric cars with breakneck acceleration, but in the JCW, you feel the acceleration coursing through its machinery. Top speed hovers around the mid-240kph mark.
The driving modes in this Mini are called Experience Modes, and the one I head straight to is Go-Kart. Switch it on and the car chirps: a tiny “woohoo”. At first I wonder if I just imagined it, but no – the car is as excited as I am. In Go-Kart mode, shifts are razor-quick, throttle response is sharpened and the electronics let the car dance closer to the edge. There’s even a shift in the central display screen: torque, grip, cornering g-forces all come alive.
The suspension is more aggressive than the base Mini’s. Spring and damper tuning, along with a more rigid chassis, make this JCW feel far more planted. Brembo brakes come as standard, giving the confidence to exploit that little engine. It even features an electronically locking front differential, which helps get the power to the ground when the front wheels are asked to do too much.
Supercars might make you feel important; hot hatches make you feel happy. Now, I’m not complaining about getting to review some of the worlds most exotic cars, but at a certain point, behind the wheel of vehicles that cost more than a family home, you begin to crave something that reconnects you with the primal joy of driving. Something cheeky, that’s both discreet and a bit too much – with go-faster stripes down the bonnet.
When you show up somewhere in a Mini, people don’t pay you undue attention. Yet, they don’t know. They don’t see the grin creeping across your face as the Go-Kart mode wakes. They don’t hear that tiny woohoo distilled through the legend of a 1960s racing icon.
If life is too often about restraint – jobs, responsibilities and expectations – driving something so unapologetically eager feels like an act of rebellion. It reminds you that pleasure need not be grandiose.
So here is my confession, in full: Rolls-Royces and Porsches and McLarens are marvellous. But if I could own only one car, it would be something like this Mini JCW. Because it doesn’t pretend. It doesn’t posture.
In Go-Kart mode, as the world blurs just at the edges and you feel the torque coil behind your seat, if you close your eyes (carefully), you might swear you’re in The Italian Job. You might believe you’re forever a teenage joyrider. The neighbours, parked innocently across the street, won’t know it. And that’s precisely how it should be: a mischievous secret between you and the road.
FOLLOW TN MAGAZINE