Next MINI emerges

MINI has presented a thinly disguised concept version of next year’s all-new Cooper hatchback in the form of the MINI Vision, which made its virtual digital debut in Munich overnight.

Presented by MINI design head, Anders Warming, the Vision was revealed as a full-size 3D projection in the heart of MINI’s design studio in Munich.

The first of 15 new MINI and BMW models planned to come off BMW Group’s new joint small-car architecture, UKL, the third-generation F56 MINI three-door hatch has been scooped around the world, but this is as much as MINI will show until the full reveal at this year’s Frankfurt motor show in September, its subsequent appearance in Los Angeles in November and its Australian release in the first half of next year.

The Vision is dominated by sharp proportions that are clearly derived from the current car, featuring short overhangs and clever adoption of BMW tweaks like the Air Breather and the Air Curtain to smooth airflow around the front wheels.

While Warming insisted the Vision was a concept car, insiders say it is almost identical to the MINI’s production replacement, with the stand-out exception of cladding material running around the bottom of the sills, over all four wheel-arches and into the bumpers.

The Vision features a progression of the MINI’s round headlight treatment and, like the production version, follows BMW in using full-circle LEDs as its daytime running lights, mandated by the European Commission.

It also continues to use the glasshouse to separate the roof from the body by “floating” it above the door tops. Its grille also takes styling signatures from recent MINI history by including hexagonal elements in the radiator grille, but refreshes the theme with integrated lights.

“We think we have taken the MINI grille back to being closer to the original,” Mr Warming said. “However, the bonnet is much more curvaceous, especially when viewed from the driver’s position and we’ve creased the racing stripes into the actual material of the bonnet.”

While we only saw an electronic representation of the Vision, Mr Warming said it was built from an easily moulded material called “organo metal”, which is said to be formed by pressing fibres to create composite layers forming something similar to fabric, rather than metal.

The Vision concept shows some significant hints about the F56 MINI interior too, with flexible, elastic door pocket tie-down straps shaped in a Union Jack arrangement, plus another take on the brand’s signature large central circular dash display. There are other signs too, including a Driving Experience Control system that alters the colour of the interior lighting at the push of a button.

Another important addition that will also carry over into the production car is the introduction of a driving mode button, which insiders insist will be called the Driving Excitement button. This will help address concerns that the MINI has too firm a ride for some road surfaces and foretells the introduction of a standard adaptive damping system for the F56 and all future MINI models.

The system will have a two-tier set-up with Sport and Normal settings that tie the damping rates to throttle sensitivity, the stability control system and even the electro-mechanical steering.

The Normal setting will be the default set-up and has been designed to deliver a higher level of comfort over sharp vertical bumps. Sport will be slightly firmer and more aggressive than the current MINI Cooper S set-up, so the system will straddle the current MINI range’s suspension tune, according to those with knowledge of the development.

The F56 MINI will lead a raft of new MINIs over the coming years, all based around a new array of turbo-charged four- and three-cylinder engines. It will launch with the Cooper S initially, with a TwinPower turbocharged four-cylinder engine, before a three-cylinder turbo-petrol engine is added.

There will also be a four-cylinder turbo-diesel for the Cooper SD, but the rest of the diesel family will have three-cylinder engines, none of which will be built in England’s famed Ham’s Hall factory, much to the chagrin of English MINI fans.

A five-door version of the MINI hatch, codenamed F55, will emerge in the middle of next year.

MINI is insistent that it will not build cars in China. It may, though, build a planned MINI sedan, codenamed F58, in either Malaysia or India in parallel with production in Oxford.

The sedan will be a sure starter for most major world markets, especially at a time when premium car-makers are selling small sedans in various markets at an unprecedented rate. It’s a car MINI feels it needs to compete with the Audi A3, the Mercedes-Benz CLA and even BMW’s upcoming 1 Series sedan, yet still won’t be available until 2015 at the earliest.

There will also be replacements for the Clubman (F54) and Cabrio (F57), with the Clubman arriving next year and the latter arriving later in 2015.

However, the move to the new-generation MINI architecture spells the end of the line for the Coupe and the Roadster, both cars that were driven by the MINI design team.

While BMW sources say they’ve been happy with the 15-20 per cent of the global market each car has achieved in their segments, those segments just haven’t grown enough to sell more than 15,000 examples of the Roadster and Coupe a year.

The Countryman (F60) and Paceman (F61) are both slated for replacement, but will sit on different architecture to the rest of the MINI family. Both cars and an all-new MINI people-mover (codenamed F62) will be based on a development of the front-drive platform that will first underpin BMW’s next X1.