JOHN Cooper was a British racing driver who turned original Mini models into race-bred stars.

And so the prospect of a second-generation Mini Countryman John Cooper Works (JCW) – of a now German-owned company heaping a decades-old pedigree onto the rump of a small SUV that shares its bones with a BMW X1 – once again would at first seem optimistic or simply contrived.

However, the original Mini was a humble family car of the time. If anything today’s new Countryman JCW could just be the equivalent of that first challenge of taking a small hatch and turning it into something sporty: by now making a high-riding small SUV feel slick and slinky.

The Countryman JCW is not cheap nor humble in specification, but it also promises to be roomy and practical, yet quick and dynamic. So can it become today’s family hack-turned-racer?