Mike Leggatt
- Jun 13, 2018

Mulgari Stage 2 F56 JCW

Mike's Mulgari stage 2 F56

Up until a year ago I'd been dedicated to the Ford scene for about 5 years, owning numerous heavily modified cars. The last car, unfortunately being quite underwhelming lead me to crave another small FWD hatch. I'd always had a soft spot for minis, so I thought, what better time to try one out! I had a friend take me out in his modified Challenge 210, and within 5 minutes, valve open, popping and banging I was hooked. It was time to find myself a JCW.

Next stop was my local Mini dealer, where initially we had started looking for my other half. Lets just say, 4 hours later my other half walked away with a new mini Cooper and I'd secured a 24 hour test drive in their demo auto JCW. All I can say was I didn't want to give it back, meaning the hunt was on to find the right one for me! 1 week later I had a car shipped down from another dealer, deposit was down and paperwork signed. The rest is history.

I've always modified cars, and the mini wasn't going to be an exception, as soon as the deposit was down the research began. Mods actually started to go on before I even collected the car, the first being the JCW pro exhaust. Upon collection I started the de-chrome immediately, and started collecting JCW pro parts. Once the look was complete the need for power and stance took over. I started with Lowering springs, which lasted all of 4 weeks before swapping to KW coilovers. Power came next, I started with a JB4 towards the end of last year, however with warranty coming to an end, the search for a tuner had begun.

I met the Mulgari team at Goodwood last year, where we first got talking about the F series and where they were heading with the Development. This then gave me ideas of where I could go next with the car going in to 2018. At the beginning of 2018 Mulgari got in contact with me and presented me with an opportunity to work alongside them to review the upcoming performance kits that are due for release very shortly. In April we had booked the date for them to take my car for a week to fit their Stage 2 kit, which consisted of an uprated Intercooler, a stiffer engine mount insert, panel filter and an ECU remap taking the car to a healthy 280bhp and 400nm of torque.

'WOW' was my exact reaction driving home, the car has been completely transformed, I cannot fault this kit whatsoever. The car drives brilliantly, pulls a long stronger, and in my eyes, how all JCW's should come from factory. Ben and the team at Mulgari have pulled off some amazing work. The research and development that has gone in to these products is second to none, which is equalled by the quality of the products produced by Mulgari. I am hoping to continue to work with Mulgari on future development for the F56.