2015 Mini John Cooper Works Hardtop: First Drive - Yahoo Autos (blog)
When Mini made its return to the U. S. market back in 2001, the tiny cars were cute racing go-karts in the eyes of the American buyer — if they were remembered at all. Nowadays the market has a lot of really good hot hatchbacks that run the gamut of cost, but the 2015 Mini John Cooper Works Hardtop comes in at the top of the range. John Cooper Works was started by the son of racing legend John Cooper—the man known for creating tiny, rear-wheel drive race cars that everyone from Sir Stirling Moss to Bruce McLaren ran in Formula 1. The tiny rear-engined cars won 16 Grands Prix... When John Cooper struck up a partnership with British Motor Company to soup up the uber-efficient Mini in the 1960s, the Mini Cooper was born. Fast forward to 2000 when John’s son, Michael started a bolt-on tuner company in his father’s name—for an added cost you could get a few more horses and a few more lb-ft of torque as well as some special badging, all without voiding your warranty. In 2008, BMW bought John Cooper Works and started rolling out the performance versions of the colorful Mini, which it had acquired in its purchase of the Rover Group in 1994. The first and second iteration of the new BMW-owned Mini Cooper John... Mini also had to redesign the wheel arches and wheels to fit over the calipers. Source: www.yahoo.com
