MINI USA Adding More Dealers
One of the newest is Sharpe Collection in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
>Just five years after landing in the U.S., the British-made Mini Cooper will have a home base in West Michigan.
>By summer, The Sharpe Collection of vehicles, including dealerships for BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover, will add a separate showroom for Mini Coopers.
This is one of the first of at least 15 additional dealers that MINI USA will be adding to the network over the next 3 years. You might be next!
[ Sharpe Collection lands Mini Cooper dealership ] blog.mlive.com
Very cool, glad to see the Mini’s will have their own showroom. Have to say that I would like to see more stand alone Mini dealerships still.
Gabe or DB:
I know you would have posted the list of cities that will be getting these new MINI dealerships, if you had it, but do you know when MINI USA will announce these cities to us?
As you can tell, some of us MINI owners that have to drive 3 or more hours to the nearest dealership are REALLY interested in this news!
You probably will not see that list for a while since my guess is that it is far from complete. I’m sure they have identified markets where they need representation, and they are still in the planning stages with dealer candidates to see who they will pick in each market. You’ll probably see a number of individual releases like this one as each dealership finalizes its agreement with MINI, versus a list of the 15 dealers that will be opening.
The realy need a dealer here in the Raleigh Area. It is about 2 hours to Flow in WInston Salem and 2.5 to Hendrick In Charlotte. It makes no sense to not have a dealer in a metro area with about 1.5 million people.
The stand alone MINI dealership will be great. MINI of St. Louis will soon have it’s own place once Autohaus BMW’s new building is complete.
Let’s hope this continues. Mostly so some of the dealerships (split dealerships, i’m looking at you) start stepping up the quality of repair service.
Being Stand Alone is the ultimate way to go. We are and it works much much better. The clients prefer it as well. They have been nothing but happy not to have to motor to our BMW dealership (In the next town) for service.
Looking at the web article picture, I say “Move the Convertible!” I wanna see the S with the JCW wing that’s hanging out in the background.
I drive to a Mini dealer 100+ miles away often as its a stand alone Mini dealership, my local dealership has really good people at it but kinda lost some of my patience after getting scowled at by more than one person in a Bimmer lol. Whats funny is a good portion of the BMW people that have done this are driving their BMW’s not because of the car being built for drivers rather its a accessory, which I scowl at lol.
They need one in Tucson. It’s hard enough driving 130+ miles to N. Scottsdale for my BMW and soon to arrive Clubman. Moving down to Tucson area or Southern New Mexico would make my drive to either N. Scottsdale or Albuquerque overnight excursions. Way too far for service.
I’ve heard tell that Austin, TX will be opening their dealership in October. That said, the land bought by BMW of Austin still needs to be cleared…
I cannot tell you how welcome this is to GR. Sharpe is the best place for this in the area. They are all friendly and knowledgeable. Though, I am a little biased. My father worked there 30 years ago when it was just a Buick/Opel dealership. Now if I can hide a new Mini in the garage, that would be great.
Hopefully more dealers means more sales. The old saying goes “bums in seats”. Pretty hard to imagine someone wanting to drive for hours to their nearest dealer.