John Cooper was a co-founder of the Cooper Car Company. Born in Surrey, UK, he became an auto racing legend with his rear-engined chassis design that would eventually change the face of the sport at its highest levels, from Formula One to the Indianapolis 500.
John left school at age 15 to become an apprentice toolmaker and served in the Royal Air Force as an instrument maker in WWII. After the war, he and his father began building simple, inexpensive single-seat racers. The cars were extremely successful and quickly in high demand, and in 1948, they founded their own company to build more.
Initially, John raced his own cars on a regular basis, but as the company grew, he found less time available to compete. He did, however, find time to set a number of records at the end of 1953.
In the early 1950s, it seemed as if every aspiring young British racing driver began behind the wheel of a Cooper, and Cooper's Formula One cars were driven by the legendary drivers of the time – Jack Brabham, Stirling Moss, Maurice Trintignant, and Bruce McLaren. In a nine-year period, the team took 16 Grand Prix wins, as Brabham and the team won back-to-back World Championships in 1959 and 1960.
In mid-2008, Mini brought out a new addition to the JCW family - the Mini John Cooper Works. This is in fact not another power kit, but a whole new version of the R56 model. This new version comes with major differences from the factory, compared to the 192 bhp (143 kW) power kit that can be supplied through the dealer network.
This new model, with a 1.6 Liter, turbocharged, direct injected engine, provided a maximum power of 155 kW (208 bhp) at 6000 rpm, and 260 Nm of torque. This is achieved by means of a new, uprated turbocharger, larger-bore exhaust and a sportier ECU map. 0–100 km/h time is down to 6.3 seconds.
Dynamic Traction Control as is fitted as standard on all current BMW models. The John Cooper Works is the first variant of the Mini to come with DTC which, to date, is not available even as an option on other variants.
The JCW Coupe is also fitted with Brembo 4 pot caliper brakes, consisting of: four-piston aluminum fixed front brake calipers finished in red with John Cooper Works logo, red painted single piston rear calipers, perforated and grooved ventilated front brake discs. Exciting racing-inspired graphics complete the package for this fun, fast and sport small coupe.
This rare, loaded, one-owner, low-mileage JCW Coupe has been dealer maintained since new. The Chili Red and Carbon black livery is an eye-turner. The stunning leather interior, with optional Recaro bucket seats, 6-speed manual gearbox, Xenon headlights, Harmon-Cardon sound system and other options simply cannot be found easily. The handling and power of this unique car put the standard MINI to shame. With a full set of service records from new, only 82,000 miles on the odometer and a recent service, this is a hard to find JCW Coupe in very nice overall condition. With only some minor rock chips on the front and some minor curb rash on the wheels, it is ready for a new, caring owner who can truly appreciate the remarkable combination of German and British race-derived automotive engineering.
Available to be seen in Seattle at our showroom on Elliot Avenue in the Interbay neighborhood.