BMW is considering taking its highly successful Mini off-road as engineers and stylists work on a chunky 4×4 crossover based on the Traveller five-door ‘wagon’ concept.
Unlikely to reach showrooms before 2010, the all-wheel-drive Mini will use a compact ‘intelligent’ transmission system and a flexible, funky interior packaging format to underline the brand’s trendy lifestyle image.
One BMW Group insider said: “We have many concepts, which may or may not become realities, but there is a strong brand and sales-generating logic behind a Mini 4×4 crossover, particularly as the USA could soon overtake the UK as a market.”
Some 40,000 Minis were sold in the USA last year, which makes the country a prime target market for a small 4×4/crossover. As a result, BMW could be tempted to build the ‘softroader’ at its Spartanburg, South Carolina factory, particularly if a pick-up variant was added to the line up.
DaimlerChrysler’s Smart division received a positive American response to its Smart ForMore micro-SUV project in 2004 (although the Brazilian-built project was scrapped because the firm’s mini car division sustained huge losses).
BMW director Dr Michael Ganal, the sales and marketing boss for Mini, has hinted at both a pick-up and “other options” while another BMW source said: “Although America is the magnet for a 4×4 crossover, Fiat has proved with the 4×4 Panda that it can work on this side of the Atlantic.
“If we could tap into that seam then why not?”
Mini executives expect the one millionth BMW-built Mini to come off the Oxford line early next year and a new cabriolet version of the car is planned within two years. A BMW source added: “By 2009 the Oxford plant will reach its 240,000 car annual capacity.”
