[Paul]

Here's a piece of positive news for parent company BMW coming out of the UK.

Despite having its detractors in the press and public, especially in relation to the right hand side only suicide d...Read full report

[simeds]

Actually i've bought 4 MINIS, and one of them is a clubman, so my survey shows its one in four

[Shaun]

Do Minis count if so its one in six for me or one in four if its Just MINIs more proof then

[supa-dupa-cooper]

Does that mean my next MINI has to be a Clubman

[simeds]

not if your'e one of the 1 in 4 people worldwide who's chinese

[supa-dupa-cooper]

Quote: Originally Posted by simeds (original)

not if your'e one of the 1 in 4 people worldwide who's chinese

OH dear thats a no Better get speccing the Clubman then

[simeds]

all I can say is '' green eggs and ham'''


















obscure Dr Suess reference....

[billy.batson]

And, if you look at last year's figures, they are all extra sales: about 1800 of the 8858 MINIs sold in the UK in March were Clubmans. My dealer (Preston Hall) sold 90, about 18 Clubman.

As I have said before, in my opinion the Clubman took MINI into the family car market for the first time.

I love the regular MINI but would never have bought one, too impractical for me.

We have been helping my daughter move house, and it is incredible the amount of stuff you can get in the Clubman with the rear seats down, as good as a small van. And loading/unloading is so easy thanks to the flat floor and barn doors.

[AprilWhine]

Fits me, I've bought five MINIs and the latest is my Clubman.

[ontheroadagain]

My Clubman, who is sailing across the seas right now, will make it 1 in 3 for me. But wait - I'm not in the UK!

For any who might be interested in how things are over here, GBMINI has a breakdown of the sales in the US...(with sales up 17.3% for March for MINI USA): Ians GBMINI (MINI Cooper) ? Blog Archive » That’s more like it!

[mister.t]

Quote: Originally Posted by supa-dupa-cooper (original)

OH dear thats a no Better get speccing the Clubman then

Well of your last 4 Minis you've driven, 3 of them are Clubmans

I saw a PW/B Clubman today and got quite excited for some reason Still really like them

[swamos]

I must try and remember to give this thread a bump in about a years time. By then we'll know for sure.

[~Marcus~]

Some positive news - weren't the doomsayers saying sales were struggling? Am seeing lots of Clubmans out and about.

[Tigger, Eeyore & Roo]

Unfortunately, it's a fairly meaningless figure to judge success or failure by, without knowing what proportion of sales BMW originally forecast. For instance, if they expected 1 in 10 it's great news for them, if they expected 1 in 3 then it's bad news.

So, does anyone know what the actual ratio that they originally forecast was?

Tigger.

[Morro]

I think the forecast was 25% of the total production.

In some markets, like North America, I think it got a larger market share than that now.

[Paul]

Not sure on exact figures, but talking to various UK reps and employees they didn't seem to think the car would do so well in the UK as other markets, but were comfortable with that.

[swamos]

Quote: Originally Posted by Tigger, Eeyore & Roo (original)

Unfortunately, it's a fairly meaningless figure to judge success or failure by, without knowing what proportion of sales BMW originally forecast. For instance, if they expected 1 in 10 it's great news for them, if they expected 1 in 3 then it's bad news.

So, does anyone know what the actual ratio that they originally forecast was?

Tigger.

Also, being quite a new introduction there is always pent up demand from early adopters. So, I would have expected good initial volumes. The real test is ongoing sales.

Early volumes are largely driven by forecasts anyway. The volumes to date are most probably just what MINI forecasted and may not be truly representative of sales. For example MINI misjudged the volumes of Coopers on introduction to Aus in 2002. They got it so wrong that they were still selling May 02 build cars in April of the following year.

I'm not saying the car is flopping or not. Just that it's too early to tell.

[Morro]

[quote=swamos;3389369] ...The volumes to date are most probably just what MINI forecasted and may not be truly representative of sales. For example MINI misjudged the volumes of Coopers on introduction to Aus in 2002. They got it so wrong that they were still selling May 02 build cars in April of the following year...
[quote]

I think it works in this order:

1 You order a Clubman

2 The car is built to your spec.

Of cource some cars built for the dealers at introduction, but not very relevant for march sales.

March 08 sales got nothing to do with building for next year, the cars are sold.

[Tigger, Eeyore & Roo]

If that were actually the case I wouldn't be able to walk into my local dealer and buy a new one from stock...

When BMW say that "all MINI's are built to customer order" what they actually mean is that their dealers are their customers and if a dealer is obliged to buy a car into stock then it is considered by BMW to"be built to a customer order"!

It's a bit misleading really...

[bubblegoose]

Quote: Originally Posted by ~Marcus~ (original)

Some positive news - weren't the doomsayers saying sales were struggling? Am seeing lots of Clubmans out and about.

tbh, at Woodmans, the Clubman is struggling to sell well.

I mean don't get me wrong, its selling ok, but not as much as we would have liked! A lot & I mean a lot of people have come in to the showroom & disliked the Clubman, which is a shame cos it has a lot going for it & I for one, love it!

This survey surprises me a little due to the fact that we weren't selling that many, but I guess other dealers are bumping up the sales figures for the Clubman.

I remember at the Clubman Launch, the Marketing Team at MINI were saying that they aim for it to be 1 in every 3 MINI's to be the Clubman model, I guess they're not going to be wrong in the next year or so! The clever little so & so's