No more mini MINIs

British car-maker MINI has built its last mini, with senior officials saying the brand will never have a smaller car.

Owned by the German BMW Group, MINI’s line-up will continue to get bigger, as highlighted by second-generation Countryman due early next year, but not smaller.

With its smallest car nearly twice the weight of the original 617kg Mini and 767mm longer, the MINI name has become a brand, rather than an ethos.

BMW Group director of sales and marketing, Dr Ian Robertson, admitted last week that MINI would never build a car smaller than the current three-door Cooper hatch, even if it promised to deliver greater volumes.

“The MINI is not a small car,” Dr Robertson admitted. “To go smaller, demand and profitability is the issue. Both.

“Below that segment (the Cooper three-door), that’s huge, huge volume and what do you get out of it?”

Acknowledging that MINI’s volumes could leap if a cheaper, smaller car anchored the range, Dr Robertson countered by suggesting that wasn’t an upside for the premium small brand.

“A lot of the growth around the world is UKL (the BMW Group’s small, front-drive architecture that hosts every car in the Mini family, along with the BMW X1 and the 2 Series Active Tourer) and small models.

“Do you go after profitability further up the range or small volume, that’s the trade.”

Ironically, environmental concerns and the forthcoming 95g/km limit for a car company’s fleet CO2 emissions are other reasons why BMW is shying away from a smaller MINI.

“In the past smaller models gave you higher compensation for CO2, but it’s not like that anymore now that we have plug-in hybrid systems in the big cars.

“But if you put a plug-in hybrid feature down there (in a mini MINI) you have a price imbalance you can’t recover.”