Mini John Cooper Works World Championship 50 news - The MJCWWC50 - 2009

It’s Mini’s Golden Jubilee this year (it’s not just Queens that have them), which seems like a good excuse to launch a flurry of special editions.

You know the drill: splash some new paint on a few cars, slap on some stickers, give them a ridiculous name and watch the punters roll up.
 
So far we’ve had a resurrection of the ‘Mayfair’ name and a spuriously-named ‘Camden’ model, and now it’s time for the JCW to get some marketing treatment.

Presumably Mini couldn’t remember any other London boroughs, so had to go with something else. Take a deep breath then, and get your tongue around this: the MINI John Cooper Works World Championship 50, or ‘MJCWWC50’ if you’re looking for something slightly more unpronounceable.
 
This one’s job is to celebrate John Cooper’s 1959 F1 title (with Jack Brabham in a Cooper Climax), which had absolutely sod-all to do with Mini. But Cooper went on to run Mini’s motorsport operations in the sixties when it won three Monte Carlo rallies, the first of which came in ’64 – five years after the Mini was launched.
 
But we’ll forgive the historical oversights and the cynical marketing guff just because it looks so cool. That paint is Connaught Green like Cooper’s F1 cars, those stripes are Pepper White, the wheels are Jet Black and the car gets almost every available option fitted as standard. The engine is the same 211bhp turbo as in the regular JCW and only 250 will be made.
 
No word on prices yet, but with all those options, don’t expect it to be cheap.