A rising tide lifts all boats?
Not in the Mini Countryman’s case.
One of the oldest models on the block, the Countryman, is suffering from a sharp decline in U.S. sales even as consumers develop greater interest in subcompact crossovers.
The addition of new rivals from rival automakers certainly doesn’t help. But the Countryman may also be affected by the arrival of a four-door version of the regular Mini Cooper. That Mini uses new engines and is significantly more economical.
Countryman volume is down 26 percent through the first seven months of 2015. Most recently, in July, year-over-year Countryman sales were off July 2014’s pace by 45 percent, a loss of 980 units.
Meanwhile, the category in which it competes is up 64 percent this year thanks to continued gains from vehicles like the Buick Encore and added sales from new urban crossovers like the Jeep Renegade and Honda HR-V. Subtract Mini from the equation and sales of these small, sometimes-AWD tall cars are up 74 percent.
The Countryman certainly lacks a certain freshness, and it wasn’t a terribly common vehicle at the best of times. (In the Countryman’s best ever month, August of last year, 2,412 were sold.) Through 56 months, Mini USA has reported 91,721 Countryman sales. Countryman volume peaked in 2014 after a 26-percent increase in 2012, a 1-percent uptick in 2013, and a 6-percent improvement last year.
Mini is on track for fewer than 17,000 Countryman sales in 2015, the approximate number of Countrymans sold in the model’s first full year.
Mini has, however, sold 9,297 copies of the Cooper 4-Door already this year, which more than makes up for the lost Countryman sales.
Perhaps true passenger cars can still be helpful, after all.
Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures. Follow on Twitter @goodcarbadcar and on Facebook.
Stacked columns are appropriate for when you are showing different models over time. It doesn’t work when you have different years. Adding 3D just adds more confusion.
Thanks, I was misreading the graph until you pointed that out. It sort of works, if you treat each column separately, but yeah, it’s not easy to follow.
We should be getting the new Countryman pretty soon here in the UK and I’m sure it’ll be heading Stateside after that. You lucky, lucky people.
If you’re impatient, its corporate sibling, the BMW X1, should be here any day.
Another SMALL, PUNY car plummets.
I LAUGH HEARTILY.
Minis haven’t been “small” since, I dunno, the ’90s.
@bumpy – Wailing and gnashing of teeth about smallness aside, I can fit 3 of my wife’s 2013 Cooper S end-to-end into the tandem bay of our garage and still close the door. I’d call that small.
It is small – smaller than competing CUVs.
If they raised it up 5 inches it would sell better.
Because it now has to share it’s niche with about 10 newly released small, puny cars….. Who could have imagined..
How do you feel about the 500L’s sales tanking?
There’s nothing mysterious going on here. The Countryman is based on the 2nd Gen (R-series) architecture; whereas, the MINI Hardtop is based on the 3rd Gen (F-series) architecture. The F-series is all-new, and superior in every way, from efficiency to reliability, from design to packaging, with BMW engines, a brand-new BMW chassis, BMW F-series electrical systems and coding, etc…
Only a fool would buy the current Countryman. That’s why sales have plummeted.
Now, the new Clubman is coming out this fall, and watch and see how sales take off for that model, which will be the new flagship of MINI.
Unfortunately, the next Countryman isn’t out until late next year, I believe. It will be a twin to the new BMW X1 (F48), and once that comes out, I expect sales to pick up drastically for the Countryman, but until then, it’s not a choice anyone should make. The F-series MINIs are quite simply vastly improved over R-series MINIs, in every way.
I don’t know about that last statement. I have an acquaintance who has owned several MINIs, she bought an F-series and traded it in for a used R. Just didin’t like it. The F is bigger, and only comes with turbos. I’m not sure how the base 3-cylinder compares to the old base 1.6 liter 4, but that was a very nice little motor. Not much torque, but in a MINI keeping the revs up is half the fun. Or it was.
It compares like this:
The new 3-cylinder has tons of torque on-tap at all times, zero turbo-lag and it’s smooth.
The old 4-cylinder (the Chrysler one, I mean) was anemic and slow.
“The Countryman certainly lacks a certain freshness…”
And that’s a kind description. More like “this is an ugly little lump of a car.”
The green one looks kind of angry. Did you step on it?
They should fully embrace looking like a Dodge Durango and sell Mini Countryman daisy dukes.
Something ain’t right when a Mini is taller than my old A3.
Warning – comment full of opinionated and personal bias ahead. I wish more Mini models would die off like this one. The only model I liked was the first version when it was small, as it should be. All the rest are oversize market sub-segments that can’t stand on their own merits/characteristics and have to rely on the Mini brand for survival.
If you get a chance between now and the end of this year, head to BMW Museum and take a look at the MINI exhibit. You’ll find that there have been larger variants available since MINI was mini.
Anyone walking into a Mini dealer today not specifically looking for the Countryman and needing its extra size or (optional) AWD will NOT drive away with one. I have the base 3cyl new 5dr, and in comparison the Countryman is an abysmal shitbox. Design, materials (OMG!!!), NVH, performance, etc.