In 2008 I bought my first and current mini, a Chili Red 2006 base mini. I wanted to try out the mini to make sure I liked it. As it turns out I loved it and kept the car a lot longer than I'd expected but am now flirting with the idea of an upgrade. I'm looking at buying a new (for me) 2012 Mini Cooper S. The car has the jcw package and I'm a bit unclear as to what this means (I get the general idea) and I've been unable to find any sort of guide as to what packages were available with the car year by year (similar questions have arisen in my mind when looking at the various special editions).

I'm also pretty unknowledgeable when it comes to cars generally so I have about 2001 various other questions.

 

From what I know, the 2011-up S or JCW would be the one I want. I think most options were a la carte, or had to be ordered in packages. You can plug the VIN into this website to find out all the options it has.
http://www.bmwarchive.org/vin/bmw-vin-decoder.html

 

Thank you very much. That's really helpful.