Once again the fastest MINI came from Aachen. The RAPTOR concept car, based on the MINI John Cooper Works Coupé, produced 300 hp and lapped the short circuit at the Hockenheimring in 1:10.87 minutes. Lap times at Hockenheim have long been one of the benchmarks of car testing, and that time put the RAPTOR in the same league as genuine sports cars.
The stage was the sport auto Tuner Grand Prix 2012, a fixed date in the AC Schnitzer calendar. Over the Whitsun weekend, 25 tuners competed in 16 classes for the best lap times. The RAPTOR beat the competition and was 1.11 seconds quicker than the previous year's fastest MINI, the AC Schnitzer EAGLE, which was also based on the MINI John Cooper Works.
The sport auto editorial team then gave the RAPTOR a test of its own and improved the lap time by another 0.32 seconds, to 1:10.87. The press took note. Auto Bild sportscars called it an extreme track animal without equal in a comparison test in 2013, and 9tro wrote that its average lap was "by far the fastest ever for a MINI here, and deep in M3 territory".
Key facts
- Based on the MINI John Cooper Works Coupé
- 300 hp
- Hockenheim short circuit in 1:10.87 min
- 1.11 s faster than the EAGLE of the previous year
- Tuner Grand Prix 2012
