MUNICH: After a series of uninteresting updates and forgettable facelifts, MINI is now finally gearing up to launch a new generation of cars, starting with two very different versions of its legendary hatch in 2023, as well as two entirely new models.
"We are repositioning the brand," Bernd Koerber, who heads the BMW subsidiary, said on Wednesday, teasing a completely renewed and redesigned range with the first details of long-awaited plans to reboot the company's runabouts with an emphasis on battery power.
After several years without any real new cars, the relaunch is to begin in just over a year with a double whammy, when the successor to the three-door basic model will arrive in two lookalike versions that are completely different under the hood.
First, there's the three-door MINI hatch, arriving as a combustion engine from the main plant in Oxford. Then there's also a joint venture with Great Wall Motors in China delivering this car as a pure electric car.
Although the two models use a completely different platform and have nothing in common technically, they will only differ visually in details, Koerber says.
Whereas up to now there have been the convertible, the Clubman and the five-door model, Koerber is planning two more models in the future, which will be developed in the spirit of the Countryman.
One of the two new models will be a good 4 metres long, the second will share the technology with the BMW X1 and thus come to about 4.50 metres, he says. Both will also be available with electric drive.
"Together with the three-door model, we will then launch three electric cars in the price range of €30,000 to €40,000 (RM193,000) in 18 months," Koerber says.
Only when these three series are on the market does MINI want to think about spinning them off into other varieties again.
Bernd Koerber sees good chances for a comeback of the convertible and can even imagine completely new segments such as a bus in the style of MINI's Urbanout concept.
Koerber admits that the growth of the MINI models will continue with this new orientation and that the brand is thus at least nominally moving away from its roots. But the MINI boss also sees this as an opportunity.
"It gives us the leeway to add something from the bottom up," says Koerber, fuelling hopes of a MINI that might once again live up to its name.
