A hot hatch that honors its creator

摘要

There's a dead sparrow stuck in the maw that feeds air into the auxiliary radiator of the quickest and most powerful Mini ever. To the wayward bird, the 2015 Mini John Cooper Works must've looked huge. It does to us. The 2,845-pound hatchback has beefed up a bit since the last-generation Mini JCW that debuted in 2008 and a whole lot since the original high-performance Mini that Formula 1 team owner John Cooper developed with his friend Alec Issigonis back in 1959. The new JCW is short but tall and wide. As we drive the elm-shrouded streets of New Haven away from the Yale University campus and onto the back roads of Connecticut, we see too much headliner and not enough windshield.