While many UK MINI fans are busy gloating at their friends across the Atlantic for getting their hands on the new MINI Cooper several months before their American cousins, speculation is increasing that the USA may have the last laugh. Rumours from various sources inside the MINI team suggest seeing the release of the US spec supercharged Cooper S model as much as several months before their European counterparts as an increasingly likely eventuality.

Being starved of the MINI for so long, it would make sense for MINI to release both the Cooper and its high performance counterpart synchronously in the USA, where demand for the potentially giant killing ‘S’ accounts for a high proportion of would be MINI owners. However the reaction from the UK, the ‘home’ of the new MINI, could be negative if this meant the USA getting their hands on the Cooper S first.

The Cooper ‘S’ is due to be officially unveiled to the public at the Tokyo Motor Show in October this year.