Why the New MINI Cooper JCW Moved to a Single Exhaust Pipe

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The single pipe. The one pack. The solo stove. Call it what you will, but what you’re looking at is MINI’s new Cooper JCW exhaust layout. We’ve been reporting that we’d see this design for over a year, and earlier in the week MINI confirmed that with the official release of the F66 MINI JCWs. But why did MINI make this change? We have some answers.

MINI has moved to a single exhaust for several reasons. The first is about design and MINI’s new minimal design language that’s reduced much of the ornamental elements like side scuttles and the fake hood scoop. With that mindset, MINI also wanted to rethink the exhaust, making it more true to its functional design.

The current F56 Cooper S Exhaust design shows that the “dual exhaust” is nothing more than two small pipes from a single exhaust.

One thing that most don’t know is that the MINI Cooper S and JCW have had a single muffler system since the R56. The fact that two outlets came out the back has primarily been for aesthetics. The move to a single exhaust with the F66 JCW is meant to be a more honest design that mirrors the actual functionality of the system itself.

Second, this follows the design MINI has used for its JCW Cooper race cars for years. MINI has used this layout for its race cars globally for years, as it’s both more power-efficient and slightly lighter. All things you want in both race cars and road cars.

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This begs the question: wouldn’t MINI have always had a single exhaust? It comes down to marketing and the very simple concept: two exhaust pipes mean more power than one in the eyes of the car-buying public. In fact, we see this on the quad-exhaust JCW Countryman.

What do you think? Should MINI have gone in this direction, matching its race cars and simplifying the design? Or do you miss that classic two-pipe design? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Why the New MINI Cooper JCW Moved to a Single Exhaust Pipe appeared first on MotoringFile.

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