MINI John Cooper Works World Championship 50 Goes to Australia

Australia received the 500th MINI John Cooper Works World Championship 50 edition. In 2009, MINI has released a special edition for its range-topping John Cooper Works model, the MINI John Cooper Works World Championship 50 - a tribute to both the brand's 1959 birth and John Cooper's first F1 title (same year). Only 10 units (including the 500th) of the 500 cars produced are destined for Australia.

The MINI John Cooper Works WC 50 will make its Australian debut at the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide and the Melbourne Formula One Grand Prix, during the 2010 MINI CHALLENGE race series.

The car comes with a bespoke paint, named Connaught Green - inspired from the famous “British Racing Green”. This is enhanced by Pepper White roof and bonnet stripes. The combination between the two colors take you to the paint scheme of the Cooper F1 cars. One of the bonnet stripes and a fascia plaque bear John Cooper’s signature.

This packaging is wrapped around the car’s John Cooper Works aerodynamics package and John Cooper Works Cross Spoke CHALLENGE weight-saving rims, which come in a Jet Black Finish.

This MINI offers exclusivity, as it comes with bi-xenon headlights, a special black interior surface and supplementary driving lights with black housings, multiple carbon features and special numbering for each example of the car featured on the side scuttles.

The hot hatch treats its passengers with black leather sports seats with red stitching. The same color is used for the floor mat’s stitching, armrests, gearshift and handbrake covers. The knee-rolls and the armrests also come with a red finish. The fascia, door grip finishers and the steering wheel insert follow a carbon fiber theme. The sports steering wheel comes with an Alcantara finish.

The car is powered by the same engine as the “standard” John Cooper Works model. We are talking about the twin-scroll turbocharged 1.6 liter engine offering 211 HP and 260 Nm. The latter can be temporarily increased by 20 Nm through the overboost function. The powerplant is mated to a six-speed manual gearbox. Thus, the MINI John Cooper Works WC50 deals with the first hundred in 6.5 seconds and can reach speeds of up to 238 km/h. In case you're wondering, the car uses 6.9 liters of fuel for 100 km (combined cycle) and emits 165 grams of C02 for each driven kilometer.

The other nine cars will reach the Australian shores in the second quarter of 2010.