MINI USA Sales Down 2.3% for July
For July, MINI USA reported 4,296 vehicles sold, a decrease of 2.3 percent from the 4,398 sold in the same month a year ago. MINI sales in July were led by the MINI Countryman, which accounted for 40 percent of sales with 1,724 vehicles sold. All that said, year to date, MINI sales are up 1.2 percent.
While the Countryman continues to kill it, there are other brights spots. The four door saw a marked increase and the convertible (a model rumored to be eliminated in the next generation) has now eclipsed the Clubman in popularity for the US market.
<p>The F54 Clubman is the only MINI USA model in negative sales territory, with July sales down 58.10% – even its YTD sales are down 45.6%. The US really hasn’t taken to the new Clubman, which was humiliated by the obsolete R60 Countryman outselling it in 2016. US sales of the F54 have fallen away ever since.</p>
<p>MINI USA SALES – CLUBMAN vs COUNTRYMAN</p>
<p>2016: 12,203 vs 12,706
2017: 07,739 vs 14,864
2018: 02,638 vs 11,183 (YTD)</p>
<p>The F55 4-Door replaced the R55 Clubman on the production line. With hindsight, if only MINI had left it at that, and replaced the R61 Paceman with an F61 Paceman with 4-doors and its own distinctive styling – effectively MINI’s version of the X2 – we would be having a very different discussion right now.</p>
<p>So what went wrong and what was BMW thinking? Well, to put it simply, just as everyone was getting out of Station Wagons, BMW got into a MINI Wagon. Too many schnapps at board meetings perhaps?</p>
<p>I think the numbers are actually encouraging, particularly in the uptick of the hardtop numbers, both 2 & 4 door models. Speaking of the 4 door, Gabe mentioned the possibility of MINI doing a smaller crossover on the 4DR platform in the future to slot in under the current countryman.
Does anybody have any info on whether this is still a possibility for the future?</p>
<p>Georg Kacher’s article – see link below – will be of interest to you, particularly with regard to MINI’s future all-electric MINI Metro range.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.automobilemag.com/news/bmw-regroups-again/" rel="nofollow ugc">https://www.automobilemag.com/news/bmw-regroups-again/</a></p>
<p>Thanx Nick–interesting article. Seems like the “metro adventurer” is what they are currently referring to the smaller crossover. Not keen on the BMW-Great Wall partnership, we’ll have to see how that develops. Also the article implies that MINI production will only be in China after 2024 and that can’t be right. Building MINI’s in China for the Chinese, and peripheral markets is fine. For North America and Europe I’d like my MINI built in Oxford or at the NedCar facility Please!</p>
<p>There’s a lot of information to absorb in this article, but your gut feeling that it cannot be right that future MINIs will be built exclusively in the China, is spot on.</p>
<p>BMW and GWM have signed an agreement to co-develop a platform to underpin the fourth generation MINI, the all-electric MINI Metro range. GWM will build MINIs for sale in China together with their own versions of the car, and Plant Oxford and VDL NedCar will build MINIs for the rest of the world.</p>
<p>It’s worth mentioning that BMW has made a huge investment in MINI’s British heritage, and has no plans to close Plant Oxford.</p>