http://www.motoringfile.com/2008/04/...arch/#comments

Can we put to rest, forever, the thought that the R56 is not a commercial success?

Say what you want about the design, etc, this car is selling great.

 

I gotta say, I wasn't considering one a year ago, but I just got real tired of putting $125 a week in gas in the Surburban. I think alot of people are getting tired of it too. Economy is becoming the name of the game...especially with no lower gas prices in sight.

I also see in my area, its seems that the parking spaces are getting smaller. Ease of parking is always a plus!

And with the introduction of the Clubman, it now has enough room for the whole family.....that pretty much sealed the deal for me.

 

Good mileage and sportiness!

 

Makes sense to me too.

 

I think you'd have to have your head pretty far in the sand to not see that R56 has been a success. Now, one may have opinions about the nature and meaning of that success, and one may gravitate toward a particular gen/model or another (that's natural), but MINIs seem to be alive and well (as always)...it's hard to deny that.

 

Wait for it...........you know where this thread is going to end up

 

^ in the boot?

 

Wouldn't these statistics be skewed by the introduction of the Clubman? Tough to say that these are "like sales" without the data that points directly to MC, MCS, or MCC. With the introduction of the Clubman I would have expected a spike in sales as the new cars are being delivered. Sales are most likely counted upon delivery and not pre-delivery sales.

 

Coupe 2,752
Convertible 472
Clubman 1,065
Total 4,289


yes, the clubman accounted for a bit of the spike. However, overall factory capacity remains the same (coupe + convertible + clubman) as it was before the clubman.

For comparison, March 07 had a total of 3655 cars, of which around 600 were 'leftover' R50/R53 models.

All of my data comes from GBMINI's site.
http://www.gbmini.net/wp/mini_sales/

 

Another reason to buy a MINI: According to yahoo MINIs hold the highest value after 5 years... 52%. Thats not too shabby

 

^^^
I can vouch for that here in Northern CA. I was planning on buying an '04 or '05 Mini, but every single car I looked at was within 2-4k of a brand new Mini, plus they all had over 35k miles.

I decided if I was going to pay that much for a used car, I might as well just spend the extra for a brand new car and not have to wonder about the past history.

 

Hey thats a great link. I like a guy that can back it up with some actual data.
I will say that I dont quite get the factory capacity statement. Just looking at the numbers If they worked the 21 business days in March that is only 204 cars per day. If they are on 3 shift its 8.5 cars per hour and 2 shift is only 12.75 cars per hour. Neither number is significant when a typical us manufacturer is pumping out cars at a rate of 1 car every 55 seconds. (Belvedere Illinois Chrysler Plant)
So they probably run one or two shifts and can ramp up capacity fairly easy. It does look like you have to go back to April 05 to see a similar number of cars per month being built.

(Not to argue BTW, just talking here. )

 

I'm reasonably certain that maximum capacity for the assembly plant is 250,000 vehicles per year.

That is one of the reasons why they are having Magna Steyr build the suv thing.

I recently read an interview with Mr. McDowell (can't remember what magazine, though!) which stated that their plant utilization for MINI was one of the very highest in the industry, which means they are running at full capacity.

 

MINI Oxford factory capacity is 260,000 cas per year, and 2007 MINI sales were over 220,000 cars. The factory is running at very nearly full capacity. That's 700 cars per day, or a car every 2 minutes.

 

okay, 250,000 give or take 10k

I was pretty close!

 

260,00 is the capacity on paper. What they can actually roll out the door is another thing. It's very hard to operate a plant at nearly 100% capacity. Your 250,000 estimate is probably a better "real world" number. I'm sure there's downtime for model changeovers, supply issues, etc... The plant is currently not running anywhere near the 22,000 cars per month that would be needed to get to 260,000 per year.