I haven't even taken delivery of my 2022 Oxford two-door yet but I continue to come up with mods to do once it does arrive.

Since the backseat is useless, I'm contemplating pulling out the rear seats and replacing the floor and other trim with the factory GP bits - basically a rear seat delete conversion - using factory parts. An opened-up interior like that would be more useful to me than a useless backseat. I'd save the parts to put it back to stock if a future buyer needed a rear seat. It seems that if the parts are available it would be relatively easy to do and would give me space for strapping down a spare tire if my car doesn't come with one from the factory.

Has anyone done this conversion or has been thinking about it? Thoughts?

 

I can't imagine the side panels are cheap. I remember buying some for a Civic hatch years ago and they were stupid money. I wanted new vs. used ****. I'd also make sure they're not VIN restricted. With other brands, on some OEM parts that are not common you have to show that you own said model.

 

Hey I just noticed their are no rear speakers back there. Does the GP3 not have rear speakers? Do they even offer an HK system for the GP3?

 

The GP3 does not have rear speakers or the HK system. It has four speakers, one on each door panel and one underneath each front seat.

I read an interview saying this was done to save weight for performance reasons.

It would be a nice conversion to see and even better to keep the rear speakers

 

I'm not sure that it's possible to save the rear speakers without significant work if you want a true 'factory' look because it appears that the red crossbar in the photo is located right about where the speakers would be on a non-GP car.

And while the parts most likely won't be cheap, having a factory look would make it worthwhile for me. How much would I be willing to spend to do this? I'm not sure that I'd want to spend $1k but I'd seriously consider doing it for $500 - maybe $750 max.

I'm not concerned about VIN restrictions because they are just interior components that anyone should be able to purchase through an online or brick-and-mortar MINI parts department.

 

I starting clicking through the GP3 parts on Seattle MINI and was over $1000 and I still wasn't sure I had everything. It would be interesting to see what the stock levels are state side, because uncommon slow selling interior pieces typically aren't stocked in big numbers.

 

I have since found Stern Performance in Germany - https://sternperformance.de - has MINI and other brands rear seat delete kits. I've got a message in to them to see if they ship to the US.

It's a pretty cool kit! https://sternperformance.de/en/home/...elete-kit.html for about $350 USD. Carpeting for it appears to be an extra cost item.

Update 10/13/2021: I heard back from Stern and they said that they do ship to the US.

 

GP rear cross-bar isn't for chassis stiffening. It's to keep things in the rear from hitting the seats under braking, and for looks. It's not structural. You can retrofit it for looks, but if you want to stiffen the body up with it, you'll want to go aftermarket.