Mike Cooper doesn't miss a detail. The energetic forty-eight-year-old chairman of John Cooper Works and son of the eponymous founder and racing legend ushers a multinational group of journalists into his garage here in southern England. As we cross the threshold of his gleaming showroom, three young Sussex lasses--"my girls," says Cooper without a hint of irony--wearing matching T-shirts with "MINI" emblazoned unsubtly across their chests smile and offer refreshment. Cooper is nothing if not a gracious host, and entertaining the press must be child's play compared with having BMW AG to tea and agreeing to develop a performance variant of the Mini Cooper S. Imagine the repercussions to fame, fortune, and the family name, not to mention Anglo-German diplomacy, if he got it wrong.
But he got it right. The Cooper S Works package does Cooper and Mini's parent, BMW, proud while answering the calls of Mini enthusiasts for more power and torque than the 163 horsepower and 155 pound-feet provided by the supercharged 1.6-liter SOHC four in the stock Cooper S. The tuning kit, fully covered by the factory warranty, is now available at dealers for installation in new and used Cooper S Minis. Consisting primarily of a new supercharger with Teflon-coated vanes, a new cylinder head, and a replacement exhaust system, the Works package increases power to about 200 horsepower at 6950 rpm and torque to 177 pound-feet at 4000 rpm (U.S.... Read full article