Indeed, the JCW gets closer than ever to the sublime, ready-for-anything nature of the larger and less powerful but generally flawless VW GTI, although with its starting price of a rather dear $31,450, the JCW is nearly $6K more than the base GTI. Load it up to the level of our test cars, whose bottom-line totals ranged from $37,850 to $41,800—that’s Golf R/Audi S3 money!—and the JCW starts to look and feel rather too cute to be taken seriously, no matter how refined and improved it may be. Keep it simple (cloth seats, manual transmission) and one can really make the case for one of these. But if you want all the goodies, you had better really love Minis.
