CAR OF The Week – MINI Coupe JCW

November 20, 2013 by ibeastie Leave a comment

Falling In Love With The JCW Coupe

We first saw the MINI Coupe when it was released as a concept car back in 2009 and it was an instant hit with us. The car became a reality in 2011 and in truth it was pretty close to the original concept and we first saw this in Liverpool when it was launched in October 2011. However, the car we saw was a Cooper S in red and to be frank we were less than smitten. The car looked gauche and gawky, it lacked balance and in truth we went off the car big time.

For a while a Countryman looked likely and then they announced the JCW Countryman and we felt sure that this would be the next MINI for us. However, when we saw a JCW Countryman in the flesh the love wasn’t there. It ticked loads of boxes but it never tugged the heartstrings. It was a car we ought to have, not a car we wanted. Meanwhile, MINI revealed an aftermarket JCW spoiler for their Coupe which we first saw in the picture below. This was a larger fixed spoiler that replaced the active pop up standard spoiler and for us it gave the car balance. Gawky became cute, gauche became chic and all the heartstrings in Beastie Folly were pulled! We really liked this car.

This love hate thing had gone on now from late 2009 till late 2012 so this has not been an impulse buy by any means. Another big attraction for us was that we were able to create our perfect spec. for the Coupe. The silver white and red exterior carries on beautifully inside with the satellite grey seats, the red dash and door rings and the satellite grey door rests and dash trim – it was just what we wanted. A clear scan after my second Liver resection in my fight against the Big C finally gave us a green light and we ordered the car!

So this is SilverBeast, BP500-4 aka The Hooligan.