2025 Mini Countryman John Cooper Works Review and Test Drive

This maxi Mini blends practicality and performance with iconic style.

Ron Sessions | 

Feb 7, 2025 | 6 min read

Ron Sessions

Mini offers the 2025 Countryman in sporty S, performance-tuned John Cooper Works, and electric Countryman SE flavors with Mini's All4 all-wheel drive (AWD) system as standard equipment. The base prices range from about $40,000 to the high $40,000s, including the destination charge to ship the Countryman from its Leipzig, Germany, assembly plant to your local dealership.

For this review, I test-drove a Mini Countryman John Cooper Works (JCW) in the Ann Arbor, Michigan, area. The test car had the Iconic package, Comfort Package Max, JCW performance brakes, 20-inch JCW wheels, and sport tires, which brought the manufacturer's suggested retail price to $51,995, including the $995 destination charge. Mini provided the vehicle for this review.

Ron Sessions

Is the 2025 Mini Countryman JCW a Good SUV?

If you're the type of person who prefers a second packet of hot sauce on your tacos, the JCW version of the 2025 Mini Countryman may be worth a test drive — it improves performance over the Countryman S model while still hewing to the retro cheekiness of the first Mini from more than 50 years ago.

Ron Sessions

What's New for the 2025 Mini Countryman JCW?

The Mini difference has always been its diminutive size. But even in the small-SUV arena, being too small can be a turnoff. With the all-new 2025 Countryman, Mini has added both height and length — it's more than 5 inches longer than its predecessor, in fact. That makes the new Countryman JCW roomier inside than before, though it still channels the iconic Mini look.

The cabin design is striking. This year, Mini covers the Countryman JCW's upper dashboard and door-panel surfaces with a colorful, eye-catching textured fabric. On the dash, these surfaces dramatically come alive at night with patterns from embedded LED lights. A tiny head-up display also motors up from the dashtop when you start the SUV, but it looks like something out of a kid's game console.

Mini concentrates the physical controls in a small toggle bar above the center console. There is a twist-type gear selector, engine-ignition switch, driving-mode selector (Mini calls it "Experiences"), and joyously analog audio volume and tuning knobs. You'll access and control almost everything else using the dominant OLED 9.4-inch center touchscreen.

The new touchscreen is bright and colorful. However, Mini shows a lot of data on this screen, and the response to input sometimes lags. Luckily, there's "Spike," the Countryman's dog avatar personal assistant that guides you through the operating concept of the future Mini model family.

Ron Sessions

Mini Countryman S vs. Mini Countryman JCW

The new Countryman JCW is gruntier than last year's model, delivering 312 horsepower to the previous JCW's 301. Unfortunately, it's down on torque, falling from 331 pound-feet in 2024 to 295 lb-ft this year. Given the reduction in torque and the new Countryman's larger size, the JCW is slower than last year. In 2024, the Mini could reach 60 mph in 4.9 seconds. The 2025 Countryman JCW makes that run in 5.2 seconds, according to its maker.

Worse, though the JCW's turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine is more powerful than the turbo four in the tamer 241-hp Countryman S, both engines generate 295 lb-ft of torque. Mini claims the more affordable Countryman S can get to 60 mph in 6.2 seconds, shortly after the JCW achieves that velocity. In the real world, that's not much of a difference.

Like the S, the JCW now uses a crisp-shifting seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission. The JCW, though, uses a Sport version that features shorter ratios in second through seventh gear, getting the JCW's more potent engine revving faster.

Ron Sessions

The Countryman JCW's standard adaptive damping suspension provides balanced ride and handling on a variety of roads. Mini also upgrades the JCW to 19-inch wheels wrapped in wider, lower-profile 245/45R19 all-season rubber, compared with the S model's 18-inch wheels with 225/55 tires. Optionally, 20-inch wheels with grippier 245/40 sport or summer treads are available.

To set the JCW version of the 2025 Mini Countryman apart, it gets a more aggressive-looking exterior, including a larger, blacked-out grille; sporty quad-tipped exhaust outlets; and diffusers out back.

Inside, the Countryman JCW comes standard with a grippy JCW Sport steering wheel with paddle shifters and well-bolstered but comfortable JCW Sport front seats wrapped in perforated vegan leather and knitted fabric. The Countryman JCW also upgrades to an immersive Harman Kardon surround-sound stereo.

Ron Sessions

Driving the 2025 Mini Countryman JCW

Among the Countryman's current model choices, the John Cooper Works iteration delivers the most enthusiastic performance and balanced handling while being roomy enough for five occupants and their cargo.

Compared with the previous-generation Countryman, there's a newfound feeling of spaciousness. Bearing that out, four friends and I hopped into the JCW for a dinner excursion, but no one, not even the two 6-footers in the party, complained about being cramped.

Ron Sessions

No one complained about a flinty ride, either, which is all too often an undesirable consequence of climbing aboard a performance vehicle. The adaptive damping system took most of the sting out of bumpy road patches by firming up the shocks for hard cornering and reducing impact harshness over sharp ruts and bumps. This year's switch away from stiff-riding run-flat tires also helped.

It was raining during my evaluation, and I was glad the JCW test vehicle had Mini's All4 AWD system as standard equipment. It delivered confident traction over various road surfaces under slick conditions. Still, credit must also go to the test vehicle's Pirelli P Zero sport tires, which gripped the tarmac with tenacity even in the wet.

Ron Sessions

The test vehicle also had the JCW performance brakes with drilled and vented rotors. I found that these helped minimize brake fade while also delivering crisp top-of-pedal response and confident stopping power overall.

The Countryman JCW feels quicker than Mini claims, especially when you choose the Go-Kart mode using the Experiences selector on the dashboard's toggle bar. Go-Kart mode delivers quicker throttle response, rapid transmission shifts, and firmer steering. It also uncorks a throaty exhaust note while chiming in with more "performance" sounds from the audio speakers.

Regarding fuel economy, I averaged 26 miles per gallon after driving more than 120 miles on city streets, freeways, and rural two-lane highways, more than a little of that with enthusiasm. That matches exactly the official EPA fuel-economy rating.

Ron Sessions

The all-new 2025 Mini Countryman JCW is a spirited companion when you want it to be and a solid everyday driver when you need it to be, all wrapped up in the automaker's iconic style. Its ability to deliver on those attributes while providing substantive passenger and cargo space makes this new, performance-tuned Mini a small SUV you might want to consider if you think driving is as fun as reaching the destination.

Ron Sessions

When Ron was just the tender age of three, his dad would bring home a different car each night from a Lincoln Mercury dealership he managed for a "test drive." That set the hook, and years later, Ron's search for a repair manual for his rusty — but running — Alfa Romeo Spider led him to Chilton Book Company, which coincidentally was looking to hire a repair-manual editor. Enthusiasm for the written word served him well at subsequent senior staff positions at Road & Track, Motor Trend, and Car and Driver. In recent times, Ron has been a content creator at Auto Trader, the New York Daily News, J.D. Power, Wards Auto, and others. He has contributed to Capital One Auto Navigator since 2023, and makes his abode in Arizona along with his wife, cat, 2003 Nissan 350Z, 2012 GMC Canyon Work Truck, and 2023 Toyota RAV4 Prime.