Take a tour of the new 2013 Mini Countryman JCW.
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MATT DAVIS: Hey, everybody. This is Matt Davis with Autoblog.com. Another shortcut video, and I'm here in Germany today driving the new Mini Countryman John Cooper Works. Now, this is by far, first off, the heaviest John Cooper Works vehicle ever built at 3,260 pounds as we're testing it today with the six-speed manual. If you want the six-speed automatic with the paddle shifters, you can add 55 more pounds.
Let's take a look at the motor. And this is the four-cylinder, twin-scrolled, turbo-charged, 1.6-liter engine that is built at the Hams Hall Factory in the UK. The car itself is put together in Austria with Magna Styer in Graz. Now, this here has been tweaked in both power and torque. The power is 215 horsepower now, and torque is 207 pound feet. And if you want over boost, you can do that if you press the sport button, and it sets it up that way with the throttle response, steering response, and all. You can get 221 pound feet per 10 second bursts, eh, just in case you want to overtake somebody.
And this is the interior looking at the front controls area of the John Cooper Works Countryman. And you see the Chili Red Option Package. You get the Chili Red stripes on the outside, too, so it's a sort of Chili Red package. And the seats, the front seats, sit up for me a little too high in the squab down there. I wanted to get lower in both the driver's seat and the passenger seat, and it won't let me. It's not height-adjustable too much.
But other than that, I loved driving this thing, but it's not a real John Cooper Works racy racy. You feel really good on the highway. It's fun to have the confidence, but it's not what you'd be expecting exactly with seven seconds to 62 miles per hour or 100 kilometers per hour. It could do with a bit more oomph in my mind to get a little bit closer to the rally car that uses the Countryman as its base.
So just some thoughts. That's Matt Davis for Autoblog.com.
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