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The Mini John Cooper Works Rally is set for Dakar

In recent years, there have been convincing Minis tailored for rallying: Dakar wins were accumulated with gusto. Now there is a new version for 2017, named the Mini John Cooper Works Rally. Its debut will be the 2017 Dakar Rally running through Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina. The new rally car has been built with experience gathered from rallying the earlier Mini All4 Racing, and it's based on the Countryman. Key areas reworked were the aerodynamics and the weight distribution to enable a lower center of gravity. As X-raid (Mini's motorsports partner) CEO Sven Quandt puts it: "The center of gravity has gone down substantially – we placed about 50 kilos [110 pounds] downwards by some 50 centimeters [19.7 inches] in the center of the car, which helps the handling and makes the car much more comfortable over all types of terrain, and aids the handling on a rally track with lots of corners." There is a new chassis frame, and the powertrain benefits from an updated engine mapping and thermal management. The interior has also been redone. Speaking of the powertrain, the Cooper Works Rally runs a 3.0-liter straight six from BMW's turbodiesel portfolio. In this guise, the TwinPower unit produces 340 horsepower at 3,250 rpm and a very respectable 590 lb ft of torque from 1,850 rpm. The retained ALL4 four-wheel-drive system has a six-speed SADEV sequential gearbox, together with lockable, oil-cooled Xtrac diffs with a central SADEV unit. The 2017 Dakar Rally runs from January 2-14. Related Video:

Mini discounts 2019 Oxford Edition for U.S. military members, recent retirees

Mini introduced the 2019 Mini Oxford Edition last fall to offer college students or recent grads a cheap, well-equipped new car. Now it's extending the same offer to active duty military members and recent retirees. Specifically, you'll have to be an active duty member of the U.S. Armed Forces, or have retired/been honorably discharged within a 12-month period of verification of eligibility. This has no effect on the student offer for full- or part-time students of any two- or four-year accredited college/university. That deal also applies to those who have graduated in the last 12 months, along with students currently enrolled in any kind of post-grad program. The Mini Oxford Edition continues to be the same car equipped with the same options as before. This means the two-door starts at $20,600, including the $850 destination charge, and the four-door is priced at $21,600. Standard equipment not included in the base "Classic" trim includes a 6.5-inch infotainment system, parking sensors, panoramic moonroof, heated seats, upgraded 17-inch wheels and an automatic transmission (a manual can also be optioned). Additionally, there are more exterior colors to choose from than on the Classic. In total, Mini says you're getting $6,900 worth of optional equipment for no extra cost here. Mini says the Oxford Edition is available in dealers now. It's great to see Mini make this program available for more people, because it's a superb discount to take advantage of if you're part of these groups and had Mini on your shopping list.

2015 Mini John Cooper Works Hardtop First Drive [w/video]

In its previous iteration, the Mini John Cooper Works three-door was a bad little mother. It looked like an engorged puffer fish facing down a shark, sounded like squadron of hornets with even the tiniest provocation of the throttle, and turned corners like it was angry at them. It was hard riding and ill mannered in all sorts of daily driving situations, but supremely satisfying when used in the all-out-attack mode for which it was designed. I dug every minute I spent in one, when really concentrating on driving. (As a commuter or passenger, not so much.) It only took fifteen minutes of driving on the lilting, tree-lined roads outside of New Haven, CT, to realize that the 2015 Mini JCW Hardtop was a lot less pissed off. And with more power, refined ride quality, a better interior, and an available automatic transmission, a lot more suitable for a wide variety of drivers. The little hellion has matured. On that grownup tip, the first of the many '15 JCWs I sampled was fitted with a six-speed automatic transmission. Cue collective shocked gasp. I'll forgive you if you didn't know an auto was going to be available equipment on the JCW, as Mini product planners had to remind me that it had been offered for the first time on the model-year 2013 car. Even then, the manual trans saw an impressive 75-percent take rate, so it's not as if many of the auto-shifters made it to the street. That could change in this new generation, where the 6AT acquits itself quite well. Wheel-mounted paddles offer near immediate response to requested shifts, and programming for the sport setting causes gears to be held up to the top of the tach. The manual is far more engaging, even if the automatic is quicker than the human hand. The six-speed Getrag manual transmission is still the better option, even the car is two-tenths of a second slower to 60 miles per hour with it (6.1 vs. 5.9 seconds), and less fuel efficient in the city (23 vs. 25 miles per gallon). The manual uses a long-levered shifter that still feels positive going between gates, and a short-travel clutch that's got nice weight and an easy catch point. It also offers defeatable rev matching, smoothing out even very aggro downshifts. Mini measures the manual as slower than the auto, but I had a lot more fun using it to harness the increased power of the 2.0-liter turbo four-cylinder engine.