No matter how expensive the eggs are, omelets need to be made. According to the Bureau of Labor Services, they’re up 10 percent this year, along with meat and poultry. Americans won’t stop using alcohol or deodorants either, even if CVS dares to charge six dollars for a stick. Everything is more expensive. Cars are among the hardest hit vehicles, with new car prices up nine percent and used car prices up 24 percent. These rising prices are messing up perceptions. Purchases that looked silly and expensive not long ago, like paying a monthly fee to listen to music or driving a mini, can be streamlined when everything is expensive. Ever since the BMW Group reborn the Mini, we’ve been asking ourselves: how a lot? ”But suddenly $ 46,250 seems almost reasonable for a tiny convertible.

To be fair, Mini’s starting price for the Cooper two-door hardtop, the basic model that defines this British runabout, has always been attractive. It’s $ 23,750 for 2022 – with a soft exterior refresh and more standard technology. We tested a John Cooper Works Convertible, the most expensive two-door Mini Cooper outside of the year-long JCW GP (which is also the fastest front-wheel drive car we tested).

We last drove Mini Cabriolets when this third generation debuted for 2016, but that was the 1.5-liter three-cylinder Cooper and the medium-sized Cooper S. While the JCW has the same 2.0-liter turbo four as the one S, it is the higher-proof version found in the BMW X1, X2 and the 2 Series Gran Coupé – all proud members of the same front-wheel drive family. Stuffed into a burly body three inches shorter than a Miata, the 228 horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque of this engine feel free with just a 3109 pound Mini to move – and with an uncorked exhaust that roars and snorts tastefully . In sport mode with the gear selector turned to S, we reached 100 km / h in 5.7 seconds – half a second faster than with a 2019 JCW hardtop with automatic transmission. Even with the added drag of a British flag rippling overhead – the Union Jack is beautifully woven into the convertible top fabric – this JCW convertible overtook the older hardtop by two full seconds to 130 mph. You owe the tighter gear ratio and the faster gear changes to the eight-speed automatic. (Mini has discontinued the six-speed car for 2020 and left out the six-speed manual transmission for a short time, but the stick shift is standard again on the hardtop.) The grip of the Pirelli P Zero summer tires on our car was disappointing at just 0.86 g compared to the 0 We picked up 88g with the year-round Pirellis of the hardtop, but the convertible penalizes the thin rubber with an additional 200-plus-pounds. On a racetrack, this Mini would be way behind a Honda Civic Type R, Volkswagen Golf R or Hyundai Veloster N.

Such a small and powerful car becomes a second skin on a trip to Manhattan, during which the small mini is threaded through the smashed minivans and glass-enclosed SUVs on the West Side Highway. There is no longer a petite convertible as the Volkswagen Beetle, Fiat 500C and Smart ForTwo are dedicated to history. And yet, despite the Mini’s ardent acceleration and fantastic braking, it’s not quite the go-karting experience that the racing stripes and hip-hugging seats promise. The suspension is playful no matter which setting you have chosen for the dampers. The driving feel is acceptable and the body tilt is well controlled, but the steering lags behind the driver’s inputs like an Xbox controller with a dying battery. The feel is almost as numb – the overly thick rim doesn’t help – and we applied more steering input to cornering than should be required on a car with a short wheelbase and almost no overhangs. At least there is no torque control, and the turbo has near-perfect throttle response across the engine that few other automakers have perfected.

For all its speed and ability to make two-lane passes that a base Cooper could never dream of, the JCW cannot be justified based on its test numbers. The JCW is only successful because it refreshingly ignores the corporate realities that define most cars built at 60 an hour. Take the Openometer, which measures to the minute how long you have kept the top down, the toggle switches with metal loop dividers or the LED mood ring on the dashboard that reacts to your actions (every change in the stereo volume or the climate becomes a celebratory event). Granted, some won’t be charmed by the craziness, but the Mini works as a personality, and considering how many people are paying the JCW’s sticker to ride a boring gray crossover, the cost is less of a worry today. Unfortunately for Mini, however, there’s no shortage of high-performing compact cars that look almost as unique and drive much better – though none of them are topless.

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