New Mini JCW line-up touches down

MINI Australia has launched its new John Cooper Works (JCW) range locally, rolling the bevy of new models out for journalists in Brisbane recently. See the table below for pricing.

While drive impressions are on hold until next week, we were given an up-close look at what the new models offer – including, for the first time, all-electric JCW options.

The range kicks off with updated petrol runners, building on the success of the outgoing models, which start with the JCW and JCW Convertible.

Both share the same powertrain, which consists of a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine producing 170kW/380Nm, mated to a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission.

Manuals transmissions, however, are gone, with Mini Australia head of product and planning, James Orlov citing dwindling customer demand for a third pedal.

“With the end of the previous generation, we had a spike once we announced there wasn’t going to be a manual, which is unsurprising, but before that we were seeing in the realm of about three per cent (manual buyers),” he said.

Atop the JCW petrol range is the Countryman ALL4, which is the brand’s first full-size SUV, featuring a peppier 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine producing 233kW/400Nm, mated to a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic driving all four wheels.

The model shares its platform with the BMW X1, and has grown in size at 4447mm long, 1843mm wide, and 1645mm tall – putting it at the larger end of the small SUV segment.

However, as its dimensions have grown, so too has its family appeal.

“The Mini Countryman has grown in size and here we can see obviously it’s grown into a higher segment, but available to be the first car in the household ,” said Mini Australia general manager, Alex Brockhoff.

“Beforehand we had customers leaving the brand because we didn’t have a car that was big enough.”

Then, there’s the new electric models, the first of which to wear the sporty JCW badge.

The JCW E and JCW Aceman E are now available in Australia, with all of the same Cooper Works fruit as their petrol counterparts – aside from adaptive dampers.

Both electric JCW models are powered by a single motor producing peak outputs of 190kW/350Nm, sent to the front wheels – giving them a 30kW boost over non-JCW variants.

With the extra power comes an expected drop in driving range, though.

Powered by the same 54.2kWh battery as lesser variants, the JCW models can travel up to 371km (three-door) and 355km (Aceman) before plugging in. That's a drop of around 30km for the three-door and 50km for the Aceman.

According to Mr Brockhoff, the brand has seen a stronger start to the year than ever before with 1817 registrations so far – up 72 per cent on last year – and a significant percentage of those sales have been electric models.

“We had the best start for the Mini range, ever,” Mr Brockhoff said.

“In Australia 36 per cent of the cars we’ve sold so far this year are electric… so it’s a good mix.

“It’s very important for us to have that power of choice for the customers to choose between petrol and electric, and that’s now going to be the case for the Mini JCW range as well.”

According to Mr Orlov, the electric models offer the same go-kart-like thrills as their petrol-powered counterparts.

“They both share that kind of wheel-in-each-corner, kind of go-kart setting, that really planted square feeling platform – they’re a lot of fun,” he said.

“We’ve also got some fun trickery we can do with the electronic systems, so when you put it into Go-Kart mode you’ll unlock that full power. There’s an e-launch control, and some boost mode settings and some other trickery.”

You’ll have to wait for the drive review to find out if they’re as fun as a petrol JCW, though.

JCW Mini pricing*:

JCW Convertible - $64,990

JCW - $57,990

JCW Countryman All4 - $70,990

JCW E - $63,990

JCW Aceman E - $65,990

*excludes on-road costs