Next MINI's debut date confirmed

Three weeks ago we revealed that the third-generation MINI will make its global debut at the Los Angeles motor show on November 20, before going on sale in Australia in the first quarter of next year.

Since then MINI has revealed the Vision concept in a thinly disguised digital preview of the MkIII MINI, which has also been spied testing numerous times.

Now the BMW-owned British small-car brand has announced its redesigned Cooper hatch, the first of up to 18 next-generation MINI models, will be revealed on November 18, which would have been the 107th birthday of the original 1959 Mini’s designer, Sir Alec Issigonis.

While the car’s international public debut will take place almost simultaneously at the LA and Tokyo motor shows on November 20, the new MINI will make its official “world premiere” two days earlier at MINI’s Oxford plant, where it will be produced.

As we’ve reported, the F56-series Mini three-door will be the first of 15 new MINI and BMW models planned to come off BMW Group’s new UKL-1 front-drive small-car platform, including Clubman/Clubvan wagon (F54), new five-door hatch (F55), Cabriolet (F57), and, perhaps, F53-series sedan body styles from MINI – the latter directed at the US and China and potentially built in India or Malaysia.

While the five-door will be next to appear (at the 2014 Paris show next September) and is expected to become one of the biggest sellers in the range, the F60 Countryman and F61 Paceman crossovers – and a new people-mover – will be the last to be released.

That’s because they will ride on a larger version of the UKL platform that will also underpin BMW’s next X1.

The missing MINI codenames (F58 and F59) are reserved for a replacement for the MINI roadster and coupe, which will emerge as a Mazda MX-5-style (albeit front-drive) sports car available in both hard-top and soft-top forms.

Expect both sports cars to hit showrooms by early 2016, with the range to be topped – as with all MINI models – by hot Cooper S and JCW performance flagships.

But while other new MINIs will be powered by 1.5-litre three-cylinder turbo petrol and diesel engines, the F58 and F59 sports cars (and all Cooper S and JCW models) will come with four-cylinder power – not in the shape of the existing 1.6-litre turbo-petrol engine but two different versions of BMW’s TwinPower direct-injection, turbocharged 2.0-litre four.

The same engines and UKL platform will also form the basis of BMW’s next-generation 1 and 2 Series model ranges, amounting to annual sales of up to one million vehicles from the new chassis architecture.

BMW’s next 1 Series line-up will include three-door and five-door hatch, four-door sedan, five-door Touring wagon and short- and long-wheelbase GT body styles, while the all-new 2 Series range will comprise coupe, cabrio, grand coupe and Z2 roadster models, and the next X1 will be joined by a swoopier X2 model in the same vein as the X6 and upcoming X4.

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