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muscular once on boost but soft-edged when accelerating from low speeds… despite its twin-scroll turbocharger, designed to reduce turbo lag by separating the exhaust pulses of cylinders one and four from those of two and three, so they don’t interfere with each other and reduce the energy available to drive the turbocharger. – 4Car

...can be found here in 4car’s gallery.

Note that the normally aspirated Cooper gets BMW’s state of the art valve lift and timing mechanisms VALVETRONIC and Double VANOS but the turbocharged engine doesn’t. (Turbo’s are plenty good at filling the cylinders with air).

I’m reserving judgement on the car’s aesthetics til I see it in the flesh but my first impression is that it looks comparatively awkward and that the interior is even more cartoony and busy – same mistake BMW made with the current 5 series…

Speaking to a manager of the local Apple store I learned that the concept for the mini Apple store came from Steve Jobs’ admiration of the MINI Cooper.

Makes sense – like the Cooper, mini Apple stores have a smaller footprint but the same attention to detail and usability as their larger, more expensive alternatives…

A video has been posted by the good people at MotoringFile...

(If you like the supercharger whine, buy a MINI now – the next car will have a rpm-independent turbo whistle).

MotoringFile – or rather Autoexpress – caught the next generation Cooper lapping in the wet.

Note the longer overhangs and the lack of that distinctive whine from the supercharger (the new model will be turbocharged instead, something we’re not happy to hear because of the way the exhaust turbine cuts up the engine note)...

Here, in the twilight of the current MINI’s life, its engineers are putting the finishing touches on the Cooper S JCW GP edition. I was already excited to hear that the lower control arms and wheels are lighter (unsprung weight is a chronic MINI illness) but Motoringfile’s report that the clamshell front bodywork and the rear tailgate are to be done in aluminum really gets me worked up...

(By the way the 1.6L Tritec engine has been coaxed from an already impressive 100 horsepower per liter to 143 horsepower per liter...)

We’ve written at length about our experience with the JCW kit for the Mini Cooper S.

Today we came across this excerpt on MotoringFile:

some of the car’s charm is sadly lost in the process. While the base model is almost too easy to chuck around on its 16-inch tires, the Works model needs more lock to change direction and consequently feels like a larger and less wieldy machine. Nor does the chassis communicate with as much accuracy as the base model, leaving the driver a bit more removed from the driving experience. Sure, the JCW Cooper S is undoubtedly a quicker and more capable MINI, but we’re not sure it’s any more fun to drive. source: Bimmer

We continue to feel the engine kit adds to the car’s charm while wheels larger than 16” in size detract from it…