The John Cooper Works garage in East Preston, U.K. is closing after being open the last six years. Named after John Cooper, a legend among race engineers and MINI owners, the garage was mostly a retail outfit from which John's son, Mike Cooper, continued to sell new and classic MINIs, mostly with the John Cooper Works kits and other tuning mods his father developed in collaboration with BMW.
The John Cooper Works package of mods can now be had from the factory on the new limited-edition MINI GP, though practically every MINI dealership now has the ability to install the tuning kit themselves.
Despite closing the garage, Mike Cooper plans on continuing his father's work of producing more tuning kits and performance upgrades for MINIs. In fact, as its partnership with BMW strengthens, one might expect John Cooper Works to become MINI's own AMG- or SRT-like tuning arm.
[Source: 4Car]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Cole Branel @ Jul 13th 2006 6:42PM
This is a shame for the Worthing district after being linked with the Cooper brand for so many years.
Merle Walker @ Jul 13th 2006 8:54PM
Before you declare that the fastest Mini of all time, you need to take a gander at what Minitec is putting together in Ty Cobb's home town. The standard Honda vtec engine they use produces a ratio of about 10 lbs/hp, and then they work up to some serious power.
Corey Garnett @ Jul 14th 2006 4:24PM
The JCW kit has been available on the Cooper S in 2 different forms (post sales install originally, then available direct from the factory) for several years now. The only thing new about the minigp is the exclusivity and performance oriented mods (no sunroof, weight reduction, missing backseat). The HP difference between a full featured cooper s w/ JCW and the mini gp is negligble, 214 vs 207. JCW "become" AMG/SRT like? A wide variety of hop-ups from wheels to suspension to engine to cosmetics have been available from JCW direct from the factory/dealer since mini launched.
ZoomZoomin' @ Jul 14th 2006 5:37PM
This definitely wouldn't have been something I expected. I guess with closer MINI factory collaboration, there's not as much need to bother with a dealership.
As an odd coincidence, I just saw a JCW MINI at lunch today, which is still a bit of a rarity.