MINI USA Get 3,000 More Cars for US Market

Sections: Sales Aug 26th, 2008 20 Comments

MINI USA has just internally announced that it has reached a deal with the BMW Group to recieve an extra 3,000 new MINI from now until November. Here’s an excerpt from an official internal memo:

On July 1st we announced that we’d secured 2,700 hundred more units for the remainder of the year. We’re pleased to announce that we’ve secured around 3,000 additional units on top of that.

>We’ve pulled the production forward, resulting in increases for every month from August to November, with a decrease in December. Production of the MINI Hardtop models and the MINI Clubman models have been significantly increased. This positions us well for what should be a record breaking 50,000 sales for MINI USA in 2008.

With gas prices up and the publics reception to both recently released R56 and R55 MINI models going well, expect this “problem” to continue for the foreseeable future. Look for hardtop and Clubman production to decrease slightly as the new MINI convertible (R57) goes into production late this winter for springs deliveries around the world.

Written By: Gabe

http://www.gbmini.net Ian C.

That’s a LOT of cars, if just for the rest of this year, 8-10 cars per dealership per month maybe?
http://blog.kurtcollins.com Kurt

And I’m sure they’ll sell everyone of them. The thing that remains to be seen is if dealers will hold back one or two of their additional to actually have inventory for walkup customers.
rhawth99

With gas prices back down below $4.00/gallon, I think MINI sales will start to return to normal. They will still sell well but I doubt that all the inventory will be totally sold out during the late fall and winter. I am glad that more cars are going to be delivered to the US – I just hope that MINI gets smart and starts to build more Clubmans.

I don’t get how if the factory is at capacity can they ‘pull’ production forward – this statement doesn’t make any sense. It implies that the current situation is either contrived or MINI hasn’t properly allocated slots to meet demand.
BrianD

Why would dealers want to “hold back” any inventory?
bluzeke

That should certainly be good news for car-starved dealers here. They must be on their knees thanking the MINIgods.
http://www.lilcoopr.com lilcoopr

What about Canada?? We need MINIs too!! We were 190% over budget for July at my dealer!!
GregW

The success of MINI in USA continues to snowball. And most of this is due to Gabe, the MF team, and US owners, and the enthusiasm for the product. Does Michael Phelps drive a MINI? He could fill the boot with his gold medals!
C4

Michael Phelps claims to have very nice cars, but internet searches have not shown what kind of rides he actually owns. For a single 23 year old kid earning $5 million per year before the olympics, you can imagine the kind of metal in his garage.
bluzeke

. . .hmmmm – I seem to recall when Phelps was stopped for DUI about 4 years ago he was driving a rather pimped out Land Rover but I guess when he returns here to Baltimore soon we’ll see what new, if any, paths his tastes in vehicles have taken. I’m rather inclined to believe he’s still of the “bigger is better” school of goin’ mobile. Lots of gold to transport, y’know?!
alpinamike

This was so needed, most dealerships were 3 days from being out.
http://www.lilcoopr.com lilcoopr

(Why is my comment still “awaiting moderation”?? Is it cuz I’m Canadian?? LOL)
rhawth99

lilcoopr – I was wondering the same thing (and I’m not Canadian). My comment has been awaiting moderation since last night.
SFRedMCc

Unlike most of us who visit this website, cars are probably way down on the list of things Michael Phelps spends time thinking about. I was surpised to hear him say in an interview after the 2004 Olympics, that he either had, or wanted to get Cadillac Escalade with 20-inch spinners! Maybe he sees a lot of them in Baltimore, his hometown, and thinks a guy with size 14 feet needs a car that big.
Dr Obnxs

GreagW, while Gabe and co run a very good site here, Mini sales are far from being driven by Motoringfile, or NAM or any other site. If you look at the numbers of unique visiters, it’s a small percentage of the sales per year or the total number of cars sold. This isn’t a dis to Motoringfile, far from it, but the number are what the number are. It’s more like this site is a success because of how it’s run, along with the fact that it’s a very good car that’s wanted in excess to its supply.

And it’s good news for Mini dealers for sure. That’s about a 7% increase in national allocation, all in a very short time. I think it roughly works out to about a months demand at past sales rates….

Matt
JonPD

Actually though Matt think Greg was right on in one regard, the main seller of the Mini brand is its community. I can personally account to 7 Minis sold to other people that knew I drove one so came to me to ask me how I felt about it.

I also believe you have to go pretty deep into the Mini community to find someone that doesn’t know about Motoringfile.
Dr Obnxs

You’d be shocked. There are tons of Mini owners who don’t do anything on the net at all. Just look at the numbers…. Sites like this have about 10k visits per day, less than half are unique. Even if people don’t visit daily, that’s what 25k active members, being very, very generous. that’s about half of this years sales numbers alone, and the car has been out since 2002. With 40k or so sold per year (very rough number), that’s 240k minis out there (I think it’s closer to 300k, but I’m not sure). So 10% may be here, using a generous estimate…. Look at NAM numbers as well, same thing, and the 10% or so that are there share a lot of overlap with the 10% that are here…

So the impression that the majority of Mini owners do something on Motoringfile is easy to come buy, it’s just not correct.

Sorry to go so far off topic, but numbers are a passion for me. FWIW, if MF has a 10% penetration in the US MINI community, that’s excellent!

Now, with 3000 more coming to the US, and a total of almost 6k to go this year, there are 6k more potential owners to bring in! Matt
C4

MINI took away 3000 factory production slots destined to Italy (A so-so market for MINI because their cars are perceived to be “big” and the Fiat 500 is eating away sales from them) and had them re-assigned to US spec cars. No magic, no mystery. Just shifting resources as dictated by the market.
Todd

Actually Frank, the initial 2,700 cars were from Italy and Spain. These are an additional 3,000 MINIs on top of that from other “shuffling”.

Still, production has not been increased. The factory remains at full capacity.
MikeJCW

Does this mean that we’ll see a few more JCW models? I am currently waiting for a JCW Clubman slot as my local dealer from today forward, but maybe that will change with the reshuffling
Alex

BTW, anyone, who ordered MINI in the beginning of July 2008 received his/her car from Europe already? What is current time to wait for “custom” (not from dealer’s stock) MINI?

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