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Cooper was the engineering genius who first realised the sporting potential of the original Mini; a Formula 1 team boss who squeezed Formula Junior engines under the bonnet of the revolutionary small car and let his racing drivers (Jack Brabham; Roy Salvadori; Bruce McLaren) loose in them. In doing so, you could argue he created the first hot hatches — compact four-seat family cars with lively performance and sports car handling. The Peugeot 205 GTi, VW Golf GTI and Honda Civic Type R? It’s Cooper we need to thank for them.
In a way, then, it’s slightly odd that Mini has been a bit slow in bringing us a John Cooper Works model that runs on electric power. OK, yes, we have had Cooper-badged electric hatchbacks with a decently punchy performance, but JCW is the proper sporting arm of Mini and it’s taken until now to get an EV out of the skunkworks. The likes of Hyundai, Cupra and Abarth all leant into battery-powered true performance cars first. It’s likely that the pioneering Cooper himself would have been all over it, early doors, champing at the bit to create the first properly fun electric hatch.
Better late than never, you might be thinking. But is it? There’s a danger that a poorly engineered JCW EV could besmirch Cooper’s good name. The original Mini Coopers stunned everyone with three victories in the Monte Carlo Rally in the mid-1960s (let’s ignore the controversial disqualification in 1966 that still rankles with many rally bobblehatters), and humbled Ford Galaxies Mk2 Jaguars in saloon car racing earlier that decade. That’s quite a reputation to uphold.
The other problem Mini faces is that its JCW fanbase might not be the sort who are particularly amenable to the electric car revolution. JCW-badged Minis have, in recent years, been very loud in every sense — flared-bodied, exhaust-popping track-focused weapons. Keeping those folks happy as we ditch internal combustion is no easy task.
The Mini John Cooper Works Electric definitely looks the part, at least. It arrives as a pair of electric JCW models, in fact, alongside a version of the Aceman. But as that car is a crossover — slotting in just below the new Countryman in size — this three-door hatchback is the truer modern interpretation of the original Mini Coopers.
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