Car and Driver features the MCS with the John Cooper Works treatment

[BruceK]

The June 2003 issue of Car and Driver magazine features an article on a red/white Cooper S with the full John Cooper Works conversion.

It's a favorable review of the conversion, but they do question the price of $5,000 installed (with warranty). No actual performance figures are given, instead a "C/D estimated performance" stat guesses a 0-60 time of 6.6 seconds for the car.

An interesting bit of trivia in the article: John Cooper was paid a one-time licensing fee by BMW in 1998 for the use of the COOPER name on the new MINI.

(Quite different from the fee John Cooper collected per each Mini Cooper built back in the 1960s. That fee drove British Leyland management crazy. They actually stopped production of the Cooper version of the classic Mini back in 1971 to avoid paying the fee. The Cooper was "replaced" with the Mini Clubman GT. I wonder how Rover paid John Cooper when the classic Cooper version of the Mini was reborn in 1991?)

[Paul]

Quote:

Originally posted by BruceK
The June 2003 issue of Car and Driver magazine features an article on a red/white Cooper S with the full John Cooper Works conversion.

It's a favorable review of the conversion, but they do question the price of $5,000 installed (with warranty). No actual performance figures are given, instead a "C/D estimated performance" stat guesses a 0-60 time of 6.6 seconds for the car.

An interesting bit of trivia in the article: John Cooper was paid a one-time licensing fee by BMW in 1998 for the use of the COOPER name on the new MINI.

(Quite different from the fee John Cooper collected per each Mini Cooper built back in the 1960s. That fee drove British Leyland management crazy. They actually stopped production of the Cooper version of the classic Mini back in 1971 to avoid paying the fee. The Cooper was "replaced" with the Mini Clubman GT. I wonder how Rover paid John Cooper when the classic Cooper version of the Mini was reborn in 1991?)

BMW actually own the name MINI Cooper out right, that one time payment basically bought the rights for the name.


Obviously, they dont own the name Cooper, but they do own MINI Cooper now.

[paulmon]

Was this "one time fee" ever made public? I'm assuming that JCW's ability to make a BMW approved kit for the MINI was a clause in this contract too.

Paul

[Paul]

Quote:

Originally posted by paulmon
Was this "one time fee" ever made public? I'm assuming that JCW's ability to make a BMW approved kit for the MINI was a clause in this contract too.

Paul

Mike Cooper told us about the fact BMW own the name MINI Cooper at a MINI2 meeting there a while back.