How many people did not buy a MINI because it did not come in their favorite colour? for direct and indirect experience choosing a color was the most difficult part of the purchasing process... again it's marketing ..

 

Say I want to buy a MINI and I fall in love with Nightfire Red. I'm originally planning on buying a Cooper S Convertible with the JCW tuning kit, but then I find out that Nightfire Red is only available to Coopers. Do I just pick another color even though I'm in love with nightfire red, or do I choose the Cooper and sacrifice the performance I love with the Cooper S. By excluding the high end models, MINIs marketing geniuses are potentially costing the company thousands of dollars in that situation.

 

It's a matter of fact that they are selling all they can make now. They even limit the number of dealers they have because they can't make enough. They are happy with what they are doing. How dumb is it not to offer the Clubman with the desiel at 57mpg to the USA population? Better than hybrids and less expensive. That is marketing stupid!!

 

show me one small diesel that is sold in all 50 us states, and I'll buy it!

We'll never know how many cars weren't sold due to color choice. But the scenario about the Nightfire Red happened to me, and I WAS dissapointed that I couldn't get a dark blue S in 02. Three months later, you could. The only paint restriction I saw that made any sense was limiting non body color roofs to the Cooper and S, as it was a feature that was on the original coopers. In the US we don't get the Mini One, but in Europe you could, just without a white, black or now silver roof.

Really, limiting colors to 3 of 4 body styles makes NO SENSE AT ALL! It's not exclusive (I'm so happy that those damn MCSCs don't get my Mellow Yellow is just patently absurd on it's face).

As far as Mini selling all they can make, yes that's true, but look at the dealer lots.... There sure are more Minis on them than they used to have in the earlier years, when you had to make a freakin appointment to get a test drive! Also, remember Mini counts the sale when the go to the lot, not the customer. At least that's what they did with the GP..... And you could still buy them at many dealers well after they all were "sold". What would be interesting is to see how many days supply of cars are on dealer lots. That's more indicitive of the match of production to demand. If that starts to climb, then the overcharges go away (as far as I know, the 07 model year was the first Mini of Mountain View didn't charge over a grand mark up, and there's money sloshing around this area like no ones business), and some financing deals show up, and next thing you know, you may get more than free floor mats with your car. There's a lot to do at the margin of the sale to tune demand that never shows up by just quoting sales vs production capacity.

Matt