It’s a new tradition at the storied Mini brand: Each car show gets its own dedicated Mini. Swatch tried it with the Swatch car, but could not pull it off. Now, BMW’s Mini is doing it with great success: At the inside, the same movement. At the outside, ever changing designs. Collect all colors!. Of course, Mini won’t break tradition at the Detroit Auto Show, and it will bring you: The John Cooper Works Paceman.
BMW says that “the three-door model is the latest offering from the John Cooper Works sub-brand and, with its race-bred powertrain and chassis technology, brings the promise of a high-octane race feeling to the streets of the urban jungle: extreme driving fun meets the extrovert looks of the world’s first Sports Activity Coupé in the compact segment.” With greater economy of verbiage, the Wall Street Journal claims that it is, “essentialy a two-door version of the Countryman SUV.”
But that’s not all. To really limit the cars to one per auto show, there will be a John Cooper Works GP, a limited edition with only 2,000 copies.
While looking at the pictures of the Paceman, abundantly supplied by BMW’s press department, one has to wonder: What will they do for SEMA?
In case you want to know more about the car, and only if you are mentally steeled for press releases written by admirers of Leo Tolstoy, here is the official communique. Careful, even the “short version” covers two pages.
P.S.: The pictures however are ready for Web 3.0 They come with plenty white space, preventing TTAC’s in-picture ads from doing visual harm.
I suppose MINI didn’t learn anything from Olsmobile by having 57 flavors of “Cutlass”, did they?
Mini – Small volume marque only required to sell a single concept.
Oldsmobile – Large/Medium volume marque that was caught in a price bifurcation of the market along with lackadaisical styling.
I agree MINI has some obnoxious model designs but since they’re all using the same parts bin and just slightly different unibodies and some panels it’s a giant bonus to them to charge a bit more over standard and make a ton of profit.
I sense ” drift-age ” from what the ’08 Cooper S was all about. Picked it up for 26K fully loaded in Germany. Push button turbo, 125 mph on the Autobon, turns like a go-cart in the hills and gets 32 and 37 mpg, respectfully. Got 45k on it thus far and would do it all again.
Where’s my eye bleach? By god I hate “retro”, special editions and stupid combinations of SUV/CUV/Coupe/Hatchback/Sedan/Submarine.
When’s there going to be a plain ol’ MINI saloon? You know, the Trunkman. Indians like trunks (see Suzuki Swift DZire), and so do I.
That’ll be the ‘Elf’
…or the Hornet…but then again BMW still own Riley.
It’s coming next year. There’s spy photos of the four door Cooper on WCF.
“the interior strips in piano black…roof liner in anthracite”
or to those of us who do not work in BMW’s marketing agency… black.
The whole press release, and the car, define frou-frou. With a $40k price tag on this mini (9k of which is for the frou frou) one wonders how many of the 500 to be sold stateside will be discounted. For that kind of money you can get a five year old Boxster or a decent used Cayman, far more fun and better value.
I predicted this awhile ago… Mini has nowhere to go, its like Hummer only smaller. Once they run out of special editions the only thing left is a Mini pickup truck. They’ve already done the CUV thing, a coupe and a convertible so the number of options/configurations is almost over.
They do have a pick-up truck. Buy the Coupe/Roadster and unbolt the trunk.
Yep, I have seen a Red-Bull Mini running around and it has been converted over to a mini-truck. Has a giant can of Red-Bull in the back of course. Reminds me of the way they did it with old Bronco’s.
Nah, they still get to build the MINI Van.
Then the MINI Van John Cooper
Then the MINI Van John Cooper GT
Then the MINI Van John Cooper GT AllRoad
Then the MINI Van John Cooper GT AllRoad Countryman
Then the MINI Van John Cooper GT AllRoad Countryman Pickup
LOTS of car shows^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H models. :)
A pickup would be more in tune with Mini heritage than the Countryman. The original Mini came in a pickup variant for over 20 years.
minipickup.org/page.php?p=wiki&sid=1f0e74702c1a2a68147151917c6a2fd7#Production%20History
Why not just focus on a new Mark 3 MINI with a normal interior?
Nobody is forced to buy over-prized eyesores. Let’s wait and see how many buyers this car will find. Although “each car show gets its own dedicated Mini”, they are only getting uglier and uglier.
Agreed, re: MK III “standard” MINI. The one platform is due for an update. Some domestic B- and C-segment cars have interiors at least as nice. Many domestic and foreign B and C cars are quicker and/or better packaged these days. It’s time for an update; not platform growth, but an update. A new engine that is both more powerful and more frugal wouldn’t be that hard, given the rest of the field (unnatural aspiration as standard FTW!).
Agreed also as to variant bloat. Can anyone over six feet tall actually fit in variants other than the Countryman?
Not in the back seat :)
Good Lord, is that tired. Glad I bought a 2012 Abarth…