[johnsocal]

Just more info confirming what many of us already knew.

http://www.autoweek.com/news.cms?newsId=101808

BMW will boost Mini volume; move sets the stage to add variants

BRADFORD WERNLE | Automotive News Europe
Posted Date: 2/14/05

LONDON -- BMW this week will announce an investment of about $280 million in its Oxford, England, factory, allowing for a sharp increase in Mini production.

The expansion sets the stage for the automaker to build new variants of the next-generation Mini, expected late next year.

BMW officials decline to discuss future derivatives, but a sport wagon and roadster have been under study.

The investment will enable BMW to increase Mini capacity to 250,000 to 300,000 units per year. The factory made 189,490 cars in 2004.

The additional capacity will come online in 2007, soon after BMW launches the next-generation Mini on a re-engineered platform that will allow more derivatives.

The volume boost at the plant will be gradual, probably starting at about 230,000 units on the new platform depending upon demand, according to a BMW official.
Since its launch in 2001, the Mini has been a runaway success for BMW, which originally planned to make about 100,000 units annually. The carmaker has struggled to keep up with demand.

Strong U.S. sales have been one reason the automaker has not been able to keep up with demand.

In 2004, 36,032 Minis were sold in the United States.

BMW CEO Helmut Panke said all future Minis will be built at Oxford.

The Mini platform has been re-engineered to enable it to build derivatives less expensively.

Global Insight Analyst Nigel Griffiths predicts the launch of the next generation will occur late next year.

The new platform is designed to accommodate new gasoline engines jointly engineered by a BMW partnership with French carmaker PSA/Peugeot-Citroen SA.

"That's only a five-year life cycle on the current generation," Griffiths says. "The new one is going to have the same silhouette, just on widened track and more flexible platform.

"They need it more flexible to make derivatives off and also to make it cheaper."

[Tigger, Eeyore & Roo]

Quote: Originally Posted by johnsocal

"They need it more flexible to make derivatives off and also to make it cheaper."

There goes that "make it cheaper" line I have heard about the next new MINI yet again.

Naturally, any manufacturer is going to look at ways to control their costs. But, one of the main reasons that I bought my Cooper in the first place (and I was willing to pay so much more than the equivalent Fiesta / Fiat / GM product) was that it was obviously not built cheaply. That wonderful clamshell bonnet really clinched it for me.

I would like to see the next new MINI come up with even more new and novel solutions to problems (just like the calm shell bonnet provided such brilliant engine access, always a dire problem in the original Mini). I don't want to see it become more like other more mainstream small cars in the interests of penny pinching.

Let's see what happens...

Tigger.

[Z1GZAG N]

"The new one is going to have the same silhouette, just on widened track and more flexible platform.

Widened track. As in BIGGER!

Like every manufacturer before it, they got to make it bigger.

Give BMW a few years and the Mini will be the size of a SUV!