The MINI Clubman in John Cooper Works guise and many were slightly disappointed about the 231 PS power rating. Sure, there’s some extra torque thrown in the mix as well as the ALL4 all-wheel drive system but driving the JCW Clubman you can’t help but wonder how the car would feel like with some more punch.
Well, we might be in for a surprise, as a test vehicle was just caught doing the rounds on the Nurburgring wearing camo and covering up the generous curves of what seems to be a Clubman underneath. This might very well be an enhanced version of the John Cooper Works model, one that has been talked about back in 2015. Various outlets from the UK claimed back then, before the official JCW came out, that the Clubman might get an extra potent version of the 2-liter 4-cylinder engine found on the hatch, tuned to make around 300 HP to deal with the extra weight.
In the meantime, MINI launched the real deal and it only came with 231 PS, but the spotting of this camouflaged beast on the Nurburgring is definitely starting to raise some eyebrows. The move would be a smart one as the Clubman comes with all-wheel drive and could handle the extra 70 HP. Furthermore, it would definitely appeal even more to those interested in owning this six-door car, whether for family or fun purposes.
Judging by what we see and hear in the footage posted below, it seems like the exhaust is more aggressive with a different note that, and to our ears, it sounds better than the JCW one. Furthermore, to my eye, the car seems to have limited body roll through the corners so we can easily assume it is a high-performance model. Whether this will indeed turn out to be a 300 HP Clubman or not remains to be seen, but we definitely wouldn’t say no to it.
[fvplayer src=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBNUPswM4Sk” width=”640″ height=”360″]
