Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) MINI Clubvan to be launched at Goodwood FOS

I am not saying it was bad, it was quite comfortably familiar and roomy. I think it had to do with the over all size as it wasn't as sporty as its skin let you on to believe it would be. Although, we did not do any off-roading when we had it as I wanted to.

They have a certain presence on the road...
A lot of dyed in the wool MINI (and Mini) afficionados are, err, not keen, to put it politely, mainly because of it's size - "how can it be called a MINI?" etc.

I guess the market is soft roader, along the lines of X3, plus all the other mass market small / occasional drive across field type 4x4... I'll stick to my 90 for that sort of thing

Cheers,

Charlie, I know what you mean; however, (and not speaking as a purist), I do think BMW are stretching the brand a little thin.

I've had a generation 1 Mini Cooper S and a Generation 2 Cooper S convertible. Both were excellent cars to drive and well built (the gen 1 a little less so in terms of build quality). They made a lot of sense to me as a hot hatch and delivered a huge amount of enjoyment when you took into account the price point.

Where the marque starts to make less sense is where BMW are already offering a viable alternative (the X1 vs the Countryman) and pricing the Mini at a level where the price makes it comparable. I know shared platform projects happen a lot within the automotive world but the Mini brand would seem one where deviating further and further from the core values makes it less attractive as a whole.

Oh, I full-heartedly agree that the BMW lineup is growing far to large for its own good. On top of having an inflated vehicle lineup they added the GT variants into the mix instead of bringing the sexy wagons over; no one is even buying BMWs ugly GT "fast-backs" in the states.

Did BMW not just watch GM cut their double and triple dip vehicle programs (across Chevy, GMC and Odls) because no one wants to be sold the same car branded 3 different ways? But then again, BMW seems to be turning an increasing profit every quarter. I hope for them that this trend continues and things over there don't get too diluted within the brand.