New MINI John Cooper Works GP: Official Deatails

The new MINI John Cooper Works GP was revealed earlier in 2012, but now we get full details of MINI’s fastest ever road car.

We had a fair amount of details – and some photos – back in May when the new JCW GP was revealed at the MINI United Festival in France, but MINI were a bit light on detail. But now, with the JCW GP soon to go on sale, we have much more detail and lots of photos.

Power from the 1.6 litre turbo is 215bhp, up just 7bhp on the regular MINI JCW, but with less weight – the MINI JCW GP weighs 55kg less than the regular JCW, it gets to 62mph in 6.3 seconds – 0.2 seconds quicker.

But the MINI GP is about go-kart like handling more than straight-line speed, so the months pounding the new JCW GP round the Nurburgring has yielded a car quicker round that fabled circuit than the last MINi GP by 18 seconds.

That has been achieved with individual threaded suspension allowing the MINI GP to be lowered by up to 20mm, front shocks upside down, increased front camber, upgraded brakes and special Pirellis wrapped round 17″ alloys.

The new MINI GP also gets a driving mode all to itself - appropriately called ’GP’ – which turns off the traction control but leaves the electronic diff in place to brake the front wheels with the least grip.

Cosmetically, the new MINI GP gets a Thunder Grey paint job with red highlights, GP stickers, special alloys, recaro seats and the back seats get binned.

The 2013 MINI John Cooper Works GP goes on sale in November costing £28,790.

New MINI John Cooper Works GP Photos >>

By Cars UK