Official MINI USA Press Release: MINI USA reported October sales of 3,370 automobiles, down 7.5 percent from the 3,642 cars sold in October 2006. Year-to-date, the division reported sales of 35,306 automobiles, an increase of 5.7 percent, compared to the 33,412 cars reported in the first ten months of 2006.
Related:
[ MINI USA Dealer News for September ] MotoringFile
Looks like miniusa wasn’t lying about “aggressively” cutting back 2007 production. Both my local dealers only have a bunch of ‘verts and those damn launch cars (had’em all year) left on the lot. Someone needs to pull those freakn’ H&C stripes off of one of them. It’s a little embarrassing at this point.
Still that 5.7% YTD increase isn’t bad considering they didn’t really have any new cars for the first two months.
5.7% increase year over year with a new model in the lineup? The underwhelming sighs at MINIUSA HQ can be heard from here.
Radio stations here are airing hourly MINI dealerships sales ad urging customers to take advantage of special lease deals on unsold R56 inventory.
I am afraid that 5.7% sales increase is just the tip of the iceberg.
Boy… color me surprised! Six months into the new design… and sales nose dive… wow… never saw that coming! Congratulations MINI… the R56 has done the unthinkable… tanked a sure thing…
Yup – Slag’s right – its all over. I’ll bet Slag’s R53 JCW against your car that the MotoringFile site shutters within 2 months…
What is significant about this down turn is the timing… There is a 7.5% down turn vs. October 2006. Think about that… in October 2006 MINI had publicly announced the redesign.. and was preparing to retool the factory! Yet the October 2006 R53 far outsold the October 2007 R56… wow!
Less that a full year on the market, and the R56 has fizzled… while the R53 sales remained phenomenally strong for its entire 5 year run.
But there is good news! Surely the R56 sales will “rebound” for November and December 2007… as compared to 2006… since R53 production wrapped up in early November 2006 for the retool… 🙂
..an embarrassing failure all around, particularly for the carpers.