Hop on any MINI Cooper forum these days and I bet you that you will find MINI owners trying to figure out what after-market wheel options exist for the F56 John Cooper Works MINI.   Try going to TireRack.com and searching for compatible wheels that will fit a 2015 John Cooper Works Hardtop 2 door and you will come up empty.  The lack of after-market wheel choices is surprising.  Of course, the issue is that the JCW Brake Kit includes MASSIVE brake calipers that even required MINI to develop 2 versions of some wheels to make sure the JCW versions were bowed out enough to clear the massive stoppers (talk about confusing)!

Last week, I ordered the John Cooper Works brake kit for Clark and have been looking for compatible wheel options since my OEM 17″ wheels just won’t cut it.  I originally was looking at the NM Engineering RSe12 18″ wheels in Gun Metallic but my hopes were dashed (at least temporarily) when I found out that they won’t clear the JCW brakes without using spacers (something I am trying to avoid).  The wheels are sized 18″ x 7.5″ with a +45mm offset and just need about 5mm or so more clearance.  Here is what Clark could look like if these wheels would fit (thanks to Photoshop):After several phone calls with NM Engineering’ s “MINI Guru”, Jerry (who by the way, is amazing and very helpful), I think we may have a game plan to make these wheels work!  You see, NM Engineering has an 18″ x 8″ version of these same wheels that they sell to the VW community.  The only difference between the VW version and the MINI version (besides being 1/2″ wider) is that the center bore is 57.1mm instead of the MINI spec’d 66.5mm and the wheels use a ball seat instead of a canical seat for the lugs:

Jerry has agreed to install the JCW Brake Kit to the NM Engineering test F56 and see if the 18″ x 8″ version clears the brake kit.  If they do, he is going to enlarge the center bore and reseat the lug holes so that they are perfectly matched to MINI spec (66.5mm and canical seat).  We should have some information very shortly so check back soon with updates on this exciting project.  I want to say a HUGE thank you to Jerry for his time and efforts  (I am sure he is probably sick of hearing from me by now with all my questions on trying to figure out how to get these wheels to work lol).  I can’t recommend him and NM Engineering enough.  If you need any performance parts for your MINI, check them out!