but thats not the argument, tell me, apart from the name, what the MINI and Mini share, which other "small" cars dont already share with the Mini!
What would ANY new design of Mini have shared with the original 41 year old design? What did Issigonis replacement the 9X share? What does any new model of car share with the previous model these days.......not much if anything? More and more over the years progress, laws and competition in the market place has mean't most new cars share little in the way of components with previous models to stay ahead. Gone are the days of a quick rebody of a Morris Minor to get a 'new' Morris Marina...............people don't have to or want to buy some old made-over old design anymore.
The New MINI design was approached by Frank Stephenson imagining it had been redesigned every 10 years since 1970 like most other small cars and evolved and grown in size like all the competition have, even the new Fiat 500 has grown by exactly the same proportions over the tiny original.
Despite what is said the 3 door hatch MINI is almost the smallest modern 'Supermini' in length on the market, smaller than say the Yaris/Fiesta /Corsa/Clio, etc. Why was it not an even smaller cheaper Mini class car..........because to be profitable it would have needed to be built in a cheap East European or Far Eastern factory like the Ford KA /Fiat 500/ Panda/ Citroen C1/Peugeot 107 etc, which would have meant closing down the MINI factory at Cowley Oxford. The solution risky at the time, was to build and sell a more expensive upmarket prestige supermini which could be built profitabily in the high wage western economy of the UK. It was a risk no one had tried it before and BMW were aiming to sell 100,000 MINI's a year. A unique unshared platform with expensive complex but sporting rear suspension and solid build quality was the result with loads of customer options. Within 10 years they were making 300,000 a year and adding new models to the range at both top and bottom as well as re-entering an expensive branch of motorsport. Now it is thought you will get your small city car as MINI makes enough money to expand and possibly build it somewhere cheaper than the UK, which is planned to get expanded production of the new Coupe and Roadster/Speedster models next year.
And now other car manufacturers want a slice of the action and are designing upmarket small 'drivers' cars to compete with the MINI as people are downsizing from larger cars but want a well built prestige small car as a replacement.
Edited by mab01uk, 09 September 2010 - 06:01 AM.
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