2025 Mini Cooper JCW First Drive Review

The last year or so has been massive for Mini. 

The automaker overhauled its entire lineup — 11 models in all, when you account for all variants — in a remarkably short period of time. The last piece of the puzzle was the three-door John Cooper Works (or JCW) in both hardtop and convertible body styles.

An important addition to the lineup — for the brand’s reputation, if not for overall sales volume — the model is Mini’s purest performance-oriented offering. While the 2025 Mini Cooper JCW delivers impressive (though not necessarily world-beating) capability, it suffers from a lack of feel that robs it of some of the personality that the interior and exterior designers worked so hard to imbue the rest of the lineup with.

The Specs

The three-door Mini Cooper JCW is powered by the same turbocharged 2.0L four-cylinder as the rest of the lineup, but here it’s tuned to make around 30 hp more than the next most powerful Mini, the Cooper S. In total, the engine makes 228 hp, which is enough, but it puts the car in an awkward position against its competition. For instance, the Audi A3 makes the same 201 hp as the Cooper S, but it costs around $5,000 less than the JCW, which starts at $51,990.

Meanwhile, the Audi S3 makes exactly 100 hp more than the high-performance Mini — at an extra cost of just $7,000. If you’re more interested in performance than luxury, the Volkswagen Golf GTI makes an extra 12 hp and can accelerate to 100 km/h in around the same amount of time as the JCW, but it costs $16,000 less than the more premium Mini.

But those are just numbers — what really matters is how the Mini uses what it has. And, thanks to its 280 lb-ft of torque (more than the A3 or the Golf GTI), the Cooper JCW feels mighty when charging up to speed on an on-ramp. Unfortunately, when it comes to doing other performance stuff like taking hard corners or slowing down, it suffers a bit compared to the competition.

If you looked at the figures from a skid pad, or compared the JCW to its competitors on a racetrack, I’m sure it would perform well; but there’s a rubberiness to the steering and an artificiality to the brake pedal that builds a barrier between the driver and the road. Neither really affects the car’s ability to carry speed through corners, but it left me wanting to push harder and harder to reach for the cornering speed that would either make me feel like I was having fun or threaten the adhesion of the tires. Neither happened, which is as impressive as it was frustrating. But there is at least still fun to be had.

The Mini Factor

No other brand does cute like Mini, and it remains a breath of fresh air in the segment. Compared to its German competition, the JCW exudes fun. From its circular 9.4-inch touchscreen that was designed with help from Samsung (which learned about making round screens from its smartwatches), to the bevy of features contained within its operating system, to the intriguing use of knitted materials, the car feels silly and stylish all at once. My one complaint about the interior is that the JCW can only be equipped with black and red upholstery. It looks good, but it’s not as chic as some of the lighter interior upholstery options offered elsewhere in the lineup.

The infotainment system is more or less identical to the rest of the lineup, for better and worse. The downside is that there’s no traditional instrument cluster or screen. Instead, there’s a piece of glass that rises from the dash and acts as a head-up display.

Head-up displays are great when used in concert with an instrument screen and provide the driver with important information as close to their line of sight as possible. Unfortunately, this display is quite small, leaving little room for other information that a traditional screen might provide, such as a rev counter.

Indeed, I found it surprisingly frustrating that even in so-called go-kart mode (Mini’s name for its sportiest drive setting), the main information shown to the driver is just speed, leaving the rev counter and gear position off to the side on the central touchscreen. That meant that when I pulled the shift paddle behind the steering wheel (which is exclusive to the JCW), I didn’t always know what gear I was in, and I had to guess the engine speed. That’s hardly a fatal flaw, but it’s an odd choice for the brand’s sportiest model.

On the plus side, the JCW still makes use of all of the same silly features as the rest of the lineup, including celebration mode, which basically just plays “Celebrate” by Kool & The Gang over a short video of Mini’s digital persona: an animated dog named Spike, jumping around and licking the screen. It’s useless, but it’s sweet, much like the “always open” counter, which keeps track of exactly how much of your driving you’ve done with the top down in the convertible version.

Mini’s Killer App

What the 2025 Mini Cooper JCW currently does that no other brand can match is offer compact-car customers fun in the sun. That helps get them closer to the real sound of their engine, whose ripping and snorting can be heard from a single, centrally mounted exhaust tip at the back. That means less synthetic sound, which the hardtop pumps in through the speakers. In terms of performance, the convertible isn’t noticeably hampered by its lack of a roof, which traditionally offers less rigidity while adding more weight.

The Mini Cooper JCW Convertible gives drivers multiple ways to access the bright blue sky above. The soft top can be locked into three positions: completely closed, completely open, or open only slightly. Mini calls the third position its sunroof mode, since the roof’s frame is still in position over the doors. However, it provides plenty of access to the sun if you happen to decide you want to feel its warmth while you’re driving at highway speeds. Otherwise, the soft top can be folded all the way down in 18 seconds at driving speeds as fast as 30 km/h. 

With the top up, the Cooper is adequately quiet, and the stereo is capable of delivering crisp and clear sound. My only gripe with the roof is that it sits on top of the rear bodywork. It’s a solution that looks good and offers more trunk space (the JCW convertible can accommodate 160 L of cargo with the top down and 215 L with it up), but at the cost of rear visibility.

In my seating position (and any other I tried), the folded roof sat exactly where the window had been when the roof was up, significantly blocking my view of traffic behind. Admittedly, the view from the rear wasn’t completely obstructed by the roof, but it was enough of an impairment that I was occasionally surprised by vehicles behind me.

Bonus Mini!

Alongside the JCW, I also had the opportunity to drive the Mini Cooper S Convertible for the first time. It makes just 201 hp, but it rings in at $46,990, as compared to the $58,990 starting price of the high-performance convertible.

While it’s a little less raucous when it comes to acceleration, it’s by no means a slouch on the road and also comes with a “go-kart” mode of its own, though it’s denied paddle shifters, meaning drivers are subject to the whims of the seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission that it shares with the JCW (Mini won’t offer a manual at all in 2025).

It also lacks the predictive shift technology of the high-performance models, which uses GPS positioning and mapping information to determine what’s coming down the road and shift appropriately. The technology could be felt in the JCW and was certainly interesting, but the Cooper S still shifted well and never left me feeling like I was bogged down in too low a gear. Nor did the roughly 30-hp deficit leave me feeling like I was struggling to get up to speed.

The 2025 Mini Cooper S Convertible also comes with four interior colour options (black, grey, navy blue, and, my personal favourite, beige) that help make the interior look even more stylish. The suspension is a little softer, too. Stiff suspensions are par for the course in high-performance vehicles, so that’s not a knock against the JCW — which has dampers that are well-tuned and never crashy — but I confess that I liked the way the Cooper S Convertible soaked up the bumpy, brick streets of old Savannah, Ga., where we were given the opportunity to drive these vehicles.

Final Thoughts

The 2025 Mini lineup is remarkably charming, and that extends to the stylish three-door and convertible models. However, the charms of the driving experience in the 2025 Mini Cooper JCW weren’t as obvious to me as that of the interior design and the technology. In combination with the awkward pricing of the models — competing with the non-performance variants of other premium compact cars — it all feels a little anticlimactic. The cars aren’t bad, they just don’t quite live up to the go-kart-like reputation the brand has spent so long building.