Road Tripping Through Virginia's Majestic Back of the Dragon in the Last Manual MINI Cooper

Published May 6th, 2024

The MINI Cooper is world-famous for its exhilarating driving experiences, storied history and, well, The Italian Job move brought it back to popularity.
I’ve driven dozens of iterations of this small-yet-mighty car throughout my career and as modern automotive preferences change, so does the automotive industry.
As such, MINI announced that they’re discontinuing the manual transmission in all MINI offerings, effective 2025, meaning that 2024 would be the last year with the DIY gearbox.

During a week-long road trip to Virginia that spanned nearly 3,000 km, Steph and took the last manual MINI, specifically the 2024 MINI Cooper JCW to give it a proper send off by driving to and through the famous Back of the Dragon route that covers 438 turns and curves over 32 miles.
We actually drove the Back of the Dragon three times because, well, that’s what you do in one of the world’s best-handling cars.

The special 1 to 6 edition is limited to only 999 units globally and the John Cooper Works treatment is a wonderful way to say goodbye to manual transmission MINI Coopers.

Join us as enjoy the freedom to change our own gears in this majestic drive route in beautiful Virginia.