MSRP: $39,750
Hey guys today we’re driving the 2022 john cooper works mini cooper s convertible now we’ve had a lot of mini coopers recently and i’ve got to say this is my favorite and it’s just for one simple reason it’s a convertible this john cooper works as spec with the iconic trim is around 45 grand so it’s not cheap this has been a super fun car to drive all week i
Want to give you guys some first impressions on what that experience has been like let me show you one of my favorite features on this mini cooper all you have to do to fold the top back is hold the unlock button on the remote you can peel it back part way it’s a really neat convertible top so you’ve almost got kind of an open sunroof experience or if you press it
Again and hold it it’ll fold the entire roof all the way back and it happens pretty quickly you go all set really sharp looking interior we have a 228 horsepower 2-liter four-cylinder turbocharged engine we have 18-inch wheels upgraded brakes pirelli performance summer tires 205 40 r18s the new front end for the 22 mini cooper i think this looks really sharp
Especially in convertible form there’s some rollover protection right here which is kind of neat let’s start it up hop inside i’ll show you around this this does not have a sport exhaust unfortunately so we’re not going to be getting as many pops and burbles as we would with it but it still has a pretty nice tone to it we have three drive modes green mid normal
And sport this has the eight speed automatic transmission this is the only transmission available for the cooper convertible we have wireless apple carplay and android auto nice little space to fit your phone right there excellent sport bucket seats with your uh little extender down here slash chrome collector we have a harman kardon sound system which sounds
Pretty good even with the top down and just a funky cool interior mini likes to have a good time and this car will help you do that you don’t have to take minis too seriously they’re a little bit of a laugh and this convertible makes it even more so let’s show you under the hood we have the very typical bmw two pole hood lever all you have to do is lift it up
And we still get this fantastic hood that surrounds the headlamps nice little torquey motor it doesn’t quite feel as fast as you would think with 228 horsepower in a lightweight frontal drive platform i was hoping for just a little bit more power we had a good amount of power from the jcw gp that we tested last year this just never quite comes on super cool tail
Lights with an integrated union jack sport exhaust tips a rear diffuser and check out the trunk this is pretty neat it folds back it gives you a little bit of a shelf here you can fold down the rear seats you’ve got a couple of levers right here and then there’s this really neat feature that i’ll have to show you when the top is up but it’s called this easy load
And you basically just lift these levers up you prop this section of the convertible top up a little bit higher and it gives you better loading access and more space to put things in the trunk which is pretty cool let’s take a look at the room in the back seat so this passenger seat’s probably put a little bit too far forward we have pretty easy access to the back
Just pull this and get back here and with the top down oh man there’s all the space you could want you can even adjust this front seat just a tad and with that front seat push forward i have a decent amount of leg room back here the rear seats are pretty vertical but hey how many four seat convertibles are there on the market these days they’re actually usable and
Easy to get in and out of this is pretty nice pretty comfy pretty cozy definitely for uh smaller individuals or kids but you could definitely have a good time with some friends the top down in your mini cooper jcw all right so let’s throw the top up one more time real quick i love how fast the operation is with this top only a few seconds to go up and down if
You hold the button all the windows will come up too you’ve got a nice quick access button to pop the trunk lid right there while we’ve got the top up let me show you this real quick so this is how these easy load levers work you just pull them both out and then this section comes up and you can prop this right there and you can have a little bit more cargo space
In your trunk area pretty easy to do and a very clever solution to give you a little more cargo space in your mini convertible you want to put this back all you do you just put these down again that locks the section into place and you’re good to go such a cool little car it’s so tiny i do really like the way this jcw cooper s looks it’s a little bit bug-eyed
Still but in an endearing cute way all right let’s take it for a drive we’ve got to put the top down again you can even do this while moving which is cool let’s show you guys the reverse camera here too before we set off we’ve got our parking sensors on one side our reverse camera with moving lines on the other looks pretty good nice and high res we have a
Physical handbrake still and it’s strong you can do handbrake turns with this two transmission modes normal drive push the gear lever over it’ll go into a sport mode and you have paddle shifters on the back for full manual control of this eight-speed auto everything is better with the top down it doesn’t really matter what you drive as a convertible on a
Night like tonight with weather that we’ve been having this week it makes the experience just incredible it’s such a fun little run about car for in-town driving for a mini cooper the ride quality is really well controlled you’re a lot more isolated in these new mini coopers than you used to be and though they may not appeal to enthusiasts as much i think it
Makes it for a much easier car to live with and a better daily driver we don’t have a crazy amount of steering feel the front end isn’t as dirty as it used to be there’s a safe amount of understeer through the corners nice turning radius too let’s do a little launch controlled 0-60 here will put us into dynamic traction control or you know what let’s just turn
Everything off all right brake gas and we’re off chirping one two and two three i gotta give minnie credit this car has put a big smile on my face all week every time i’ve driven it i also think mini has toned down the fake piped in audio in this interior just a little bit more and i like that i can hear more exhaust and turbo whistle with the top up than i
Can speaker sound and i like that in normal it is reduced a little bit more know it still sounds a little bit funny i think it’s okay definitely not as bad as the previous generation mini coopers nice convenience features too you want to roll all the windows up at once you just press this window switch here and they all come up all the way around you that does
Reduce wind buffeting quite a bit fun pops between gear changes there and if you’re really into it it’ll give you a little bit of a kick in your backside between shifts it’s definitely what’s causing that little bit of wheel spin between first and second and second and third gosh i haven’t driven a frontal drive car that’s tripped in a third in a while that’s
Pretty cool let’s put the top up here getting a little bit windy on the highway luckily we can do this very quickly at a light i love it a lot of understeer even in jcw form on these performance pirellis i do miss the days when minis would rotate off throttle a little bit more for you you could get some liftoff oversteer really chuck them around i’m sure
There’s some aftermarket sway bars or suspension components that you can get to kind of wake this chassis up but uh for now this is pretty safe if you really want a performance car this doesn’t quite handle like they used to i would definitely look at the aftermarket for some solutions even the jcw gp was very safe and you couldn’t upset it even if you chucked it
Into a corner with a little trail breaking on track uh yeah this the mini is buttoned down it’s well sorted it rides excellent the suspension tuning here is very comfortable for a mini i mean of course this isn’t a toyota camry it’s not going to ride like one but it feels great on these rough michigan roads that we’ve been driving on this week with a convertible
Roof up on the highway 80 miles an hour it’s quiet this top is pretty tricky you’ve got a solid plastic piece right here that i’m sure reduces a lot of wind buffeting and a lot of the top is very well insulated it’s pretty thick it’s incredibly well made definitely uh a lot of the extra premium that you’re paying for the convertible over the coupe goes into
The fabrication and uh development of this top it’s really nice i’m surprised at how quiet it is at speed i’ve barely driven this car this week with the roof up but uh this is really nice you can easily hold the conversation in here no problem it’s a little bit bright out right now but we do have ambient lighting in this mini cooper part of the iconic trim a
Very traditional cruise control i like it though because as soon as you press the cruise control button it’ll set to your current speed you don’t have to do a couple button presses you can skip five monitor increments very easily cancel and resume it’s very basic very uh very user friendly the shift programming is pretty well calibrated too i do like being able
To take over occasionally in manual mode but honestly just leaving this in drive this week i’ve been pretty happy with the way it feels the way it performs all right let’s hit a couple corners here what’s up you still feel like you are in a small lightweight mini cooper it just doesn’t beat you up anymore and that has its pros and cons i think some of the
Purists would love to get the visceral dynamic feeling back out of these mini coopers but i don’t think that’s the market they’re going for this is more of an upscale hot hatch and it’s pretty unique in the market there isn’t really anything else that offers this level of refinement comfort space for the size and the sportiness that this is i’m sure you could
Pay a little bit extra for a bmw z4 but that’s an entirely different type of car and if you’ve taken a look at miata prices recently some of them aren’t far off from this top trim john cooper works convertible let’s talk about this infotainment for a second it’s a bit of a mess the scroll wheel is the complete opposite direction of what it should be which takes
Some getting used to but that’s been a mini cooper thing for quite a while once you get all your settings figured out and everything sent to your liking it’s okay but going into changing stuff is a pretty tall order there’s a lot of menus a lot of inputs uh there’s not a very good organization to everything that said though wireless apple carplay has worked
Really well this week the sound system sounds pretty good it’s a little bit bass heavy but you can go in and adjust that it’s just very difficult to do so the screen looks nice i like the contrast i like the colors it’s pretty responsive with the scroll wheel and as a touch screen oh maybe not that responsive as a touch screen that’s okay and you have some nice
Quick access controls down here you press the media button it takes you to whatever song you’re playing whether it’s through spotify or your music app i just got the new iphone and i don’t have my sound system test playlist loaded on it yet so if you want to hear a sound system test on this head on over to the daily motor youtube channel check out what charlie
Has for you guys i would love to hear what this car sounds like with a sport exhaust or a sportier exhaust as it sits this is a nice balance between fun and a decent tone there’s no drone here it gives you enough pops to make it interesting and keep it exciting but it’s not obnoxious and i mentioned earlier the power just it never quite comes on and for 228
Horsepower especially kind of bmw horsepower um i was hoping for just a little bit more acceleration out of this mini cooper it almost feels like it’s torque by gear and it’s being limited in the first couple of years that said though this is a really well balanced car that’s comfortable to drive but fun and engaging it kind of hits all the marks and does a nice
Job i think delivering on its intended purpose really the only con here is it’s a bit expensive especially with the iconic trim that adds six thousand dollars and for 45 grand that’s a lot of money for a little tiny car but i will say if you’re interested in one uh i think this is my favorite mini that i’ve driven yet it’s a blast it really is fun to drive i
Look forward to getting into it and taking it out even if it’s for a quick trip and for a long journey longer drives it’s still comfortable it doesn’t beat you up as much as the old cars do and with its competitors i don’t really know if it has many they’re mostly either a lot less expensive or a lot more expensive and it’d be fun to take out to an autocross
All right guys that’s it for this one thanks for watching just some first impressions on this jcw convertible let’s see more on this car check out the winding road magazine youtube channel and daily motor we’ll see you guys in the next one take it easy you
Transcribed from video
2022 MINI Cooper John Cooper Works Convertible – POV First Impressions By TheTopher
