I'm with you for sure. But unfortunately, most people will see the extra "advantage" that the Countryman offers over the Clubman and I feel like most potential Clubman sales will deviate towards the Countryman as a result. I think that's mostly because we will be in the minority that still loves the Clubman even in the wake of a Countryman, but I hope I'm wrong!

Very much so agreed. People most certainly do buy cars because they want them, and even more so with a MINI. I feel like you and I think quite similarly

 

I'm looking forward to the R60. I'm a multi MINI family with my '05 MCS. Wife will have an '10 vert and I will have either an '10 Clubman or '11 R60 depending how much longer my R53 stays in one piece! The R60 appeals to me based on interior comfort for rear passengers without sacrificing driving performance and fuel economy two things where SUVs suffer. My passengers will mostly be my growing 5 year old son however and his friend. My wife loves road trips and I've done plenty of them in my R53 but I guess I'm just looking for something different within the MINI family. The Clubman is great if you want a higher capacity Cooper or Cooper S. Heck I plan to get my next car as an auto. I'm really getting old!

 

I met a fellow MINI owner on Sunday and he showed me these pics of the Countryman on Van Nuys Blvd!!!
I wish I had been there, I would have followed the vehicle like a stalker...
Enjoy..

 

After writing the post above... I read the latest interview on motoringfile.com and the MINI spokesperson said the three seat rear row will not come to the US, so nevermind, I won't be getting one someday, it is now out of the question. Well, until someone sells the european bits to convert a US model to three seat rear...

 

In the same article the product manager basically said the Clubman would go away in the future.

 

Purely anecdotal, but I just got rid of my soccer mom minivan and replaced it with the Clubman.
I still need the bit of extra space in the Clubman, but no way would I go for the Countryman.
I might have 12 years ago when I needed a minivan.
I think that they each have their own market niche.
Time will tell if MINI can maintain sales in both models.
That is what will make the final determination

 

I know I'm probably beating a dead horse at this point (three pages into the topic), but I echo the sentiment of those who feel the Clubman and Countryman are two separate entities entirely. I could be wrong, but I feel as though the Countryman would have a hard time performing and handling as well as the smaller Clubman... And besides, the Clubman is all the car I really need.

 

http://www.carkeys.co.uk/news/2010/f...y/16/17144.asp

To summarize the article, the starting price of 16,000 GBP for the MINI Countryman One FWD, which would be a pig with the added weight and the 95 hp engine. The Brits will have 5 engine choices (two diesels, One, Cooper and Cooper S), the latter 3 being retuned to provide a slight bump in the hp numbers.

The S will cost 22,030 GBP starting with AWD.

 

No, the problem is the price delta. The X1 is going to start somewhere around $33,000. BMW could cheapen the X1 to get down to where the Countryman starts ($27,000 - $28,000), but they do not view themselves as an econobox company. They wouldn't do that to a BMW labeled product. It's hard to demand a premium price after you do that.

 

If we can know for a fact that the Countryman will be known as a sporty vehicle but not coming close to the hardtop, then the Clubman will be a strong seller. There are stories after stories about those who want the sporty performance of the hardtop but purchase the Clubman for the extra room. That added weight for the extra room equates to a performance loss of an adult passenger in the hardtop. Afterall, the Clubman is a sporty performer. The Countryman is bigger, heavier, may not have that much more cargo area than a Clubman but it does have its selling points. Four doors for one, larger cargo area(maybe not much more), higher ride height for increased visibility(for those who want that) and offroad capability, AWD for those who want and/or need it, and lastly, those who want to stay in the MINI family but want and/or need all of the above.

 

The Cooper Countryman is going to start far below $27,000-$28,000, and the Countryman is still ~14" shorter than the X1. There is plenty of room between the Hardtop and X1 for the Countryman, both price-wise and size-wise.

 

You sound like my Dad when the '65 Mustang came out. "That's the end of Ford".

 

In 1977 my wife and i were hitch-hiking in England. In Suffolk we were picked up in an old Cooper (late 60s I'd guess) by a farmer who had his teenage son with him. Our backpacks (full size Jansports) fit in the back, we fit in the back seat, and we had a lovely ride to his farm. So we had 3 adults, 1 near adult, and 2 huge backpacks in a Mini. So don't tell me they can't carry a family. How many families are bigger than that!

 

If the Clubman is discontinued, what do you think that means for the resale value of the Clubman?

 

I would assume that would be good for us Clubman owners considering you wouldn't be able to order them new anymore. But that is years away...

I plan to get a Countryman, depending on these factors:

1. They make JCW version
2. It gets A LOT more hp
3. Still handles like a MINI

But, alas, getting all of that seems like a long shot!

 

Guys, read this article from Peter de Lorenzo published today at Autoextremist.com. While he doesn't make direct references to MINI, his critique of the current direction of BMW as a whole is spot on and reflects on the philosophy driving new products as the R60...

February 17, 2010



It’s official: The poseurs and in-house cynics are out to destroy BMW from within.

By Peter M. De Lorenzo

(Posted 2/16, 3:00PM) Detroit. I’ve written about the crucial importance of managing a car company’s image in this column countless times. Crafting an image is – beyond making the actual products great, of course – the most difficult and harrowing endeavor a company can pursue. It is fraught with peril, progress can come in extremely minute bursts, setbacks can be devastating – witness Toyota’s current travails - and to get it right takes years and years of focused, unflinching consistency that starts with top management and runs rampant throughout the rest of the organization.

And it’s never easy, because every piece of corporate communication, every PR event, every bit of advertising, every executive interview, every quote to the press and every marketing initiative plays a role in creating that image.

Today we’re witnessing GM’s struggle as it tries to redefine an image that has been left in tatters by its swoon into bankruptcy, and of course after years of mediocrity and the accumulated bad consumer memories associated with it. GM desperately wants everyone to look at where they are now with their products and where they’re going, while many consumers are still reluctant to even give them the time of day. It’s a huge mountain to climb.

Chrysler is in even worse shape. Disengaged from the public conversation for too long now, Chrysler is frantically trying to get back on consumer radar screens with its current product lineup, while its new Fiat-enhanced offerings are still many months away. The brain trust at Chrysler is finding the going excruciatingly slow – if not just plain excruciating – and it will take years, not months, but years of grinding away to get out from under the cloud hanging over the company.

And while GM and Chrysler flail about, Ford keeps its blinders on and just keeps upping the ante with more excellent products, a clearly focused plan and a leadership that’s second to none. (And a leadership that is all too painfully aware that it could go south in a heartbeat if they veer off message or get off track, I might add.)

But today it’s about BMW.

For years BMW was the car company to emulate. With focused products that perfectly mirrored its etched-in-stone persona as the “Ultimate Driving Machine,” BMW was the envy of all other car companies - and from every angle too - product, marketing and image. Oh, BMW did have its missteps along the way, to be sure, but generally it strictly adhered to its carefully orchestrated persona as the most sought after and desirable German luxury-performance make.

Until the last few years, that is.

Concurrent with BMW’s perilous adventure while embracing designer Chris Bangle’s whims, the company embarked on a path of being more “approachable.” In doing so, BMW mimicked the wrong-headed Mercedes-Benz foray into becoming the dreaded “all things to all people” car company, and both companies took turns steering off the road and into the ditch with a series of product missteps and quality miscues while chasing volume that eroded their heretofore solid reputations.

For BMW it was the shockingly lame sports car that took the company a decade to get right (and some would argue that the current Z4 still isn’t what it should be). But that was the least of their transgressions, because they also unleashed a series of bloated SUVs - each more overwrought and overweight than the previous one – while expanding their product lineup into territories that rendered them all but unrecognizable as BMW. And other than the 3 Series - which they steadfastly refused to screw up - BMW continued down the path that was taking them away from their core strengths, resulting in such motorized atrocities as the 5GT and X6 crossovers.

It’s obvious that there is a massive internal struggle going on within BMW. On one side are the True Believers, the people who want BMW to get back to its roots building nimble, lightweight sedans with verve, personality, performance, efficiency and character. And on the other are the poseurs - the in-house cynics who believe that the blue-and-white propeller emblem can sell pretty much anything - and to them worrying about such quaint notions as the company’s roots is a recipe for disaster, because too much easy profit will be missed pursuing such folly.

Which brings me to the new BMW television campaign called “Joy,” which shows any number of Shiny Happy people enjoying their various BMWs in all kinds of sunny, enjoyable ways. The abridged copy unfolds like this…

We are a car company, but we just don’t make cars

We make time machines…and create works of art

We realized a long time ago that what you make people feel is just as important as what you make.

And at BMW we just don’t make cars, we make joy…


Perfectly fine on the surface, because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the word “joy,” right? How could a genuine expression of happiness be bad? Especially when it’s brought to you by such a fine automobile?

Look below the surface, however, and we find that this commercial is trying to appease both internal camps. This is BMW straddling the fence, while trying to curry favor with the True Believers – who couldn’t possibly quibble with the idea of the “joy” of driving that BMW brings to the table, could they? – and the in-house cynics who want to see loads of shiny happy people driving many different BMWs, a cross section of which are now calculatedly designed for the more mundane vagaries of everyday life.

Besides the fact that this is BMW we’re talking about here, the problem with the “Joy” campaign isn’t the use of the word itself - no, it’s the fact that this commercial could have been done by any other brand. It could be a Kia spot. Or Hyundai. Or Volvo. Or Chevrolet. Or even Honda.

With this spot BMW is going all shiny-happy on us and abdicating its throne. You don’t just walk away from one of the most memorable and accurately descriptive advertising themes in automotive history “for a while” as BMW says, and expect to blissfully escape any lasting repercussions or long-term effects.

It just doesn’t work that way.

Ask Mercedes-Benz. They walked away from “Engineered like no other car in the World” - literally and spiritually - years and years ago, and they’ve been desperate to reclaim its power and imagery ever since. And short of adopting that theme again and living up to it in every respect, guess what? They’ll never get it back.

BMW insists this is just an expansion of their brand positioning to accommodate what people already know, that BMWs are a “joy” to drive.

I vehemently disagree. It’s not brand positioning, it’s bland positioning.

By selling something acceptably agreeable for all, it’s all but guaranteed that BMW will fail to elicit passion from anyone.

Which makes it official: The poseurs and in-house cynics are out to destroy BMW from within.

And with this new “Joy” campaign, they’re off to an excellent head start.

That’s all I got for this week.

 

No, the point isthar was trying to make is not build the Countryman and leave that slot to the X1. My point was that you would need a really cheap X1 to get down to the Countryman price range. BMW wouldn't do a stripper X1 to get it down to that price range.

 

But the thing is that the X1 is not the same car as the Countryman, although it is in approximately the same segment. As such, the X1 doesn't have to be in the same price range as the Countryman to exist. I don't think the point isthar was making is that the X1 would have to take the place of the Countryman in terms of price, isthar is just saying it would make more sense for BMW to release the X1 because it makes more sense from a market's standpoint.

IMO, the X1 fulfills a more "necessary" middle ground between the other cars than the Countryman does and should have been the one that is launched.

 

My point was that $27,000-$28,000 wouldn't be low enough to match the base price of the Countryman... and that the Countryman fits in the middle of the Hardtop and X1.

 

Only it is too big of a jump from the MINI range to the X1, physically and pricewise. If the Countryman, according to some, is too big for the MINI line, then the X1 at 14" LONGER surely must be too big. Similarly, the Countryman size couldn't be the small crossover for BMW. It is too small. I think MINIs and BMWs are sold to different audiences. Conceptually the top end of the MINI line is not the same as the bottom end of the BMW line.

 

I was all ready to wait another year for the Countryman, and then I realized...I sure as heck don't want to buy the first model year of the R60. There are going to be issues! I'd much rather have a 2014 or 2015 model based on how my 2005 R53 is compared to the first 2003 R50 I had. With that in mind, I think I'm going to get a late model 2010 or early 2011 Clubman, lol.

Richard

 

Ummm, my family is bigger than that, and any family with three kids (and two parents). Yeah, we could probably all fit, but one wouldn't have a seatbelt, and that will never happen in my car. I really wish there were a 5 seater option from MINI (in the US). It doesn't need to be a road warrior, evrything car... just have enough room to get around town with the three kids and my wife.

 

who the hell buys base?

by the time my wife was done accessorizing our Clubman S was $38k out the door

 

Far be it from me to talk you out of a Clubman, but I wouldn't be too afraid of a new R60. Most of the components have been around since 2007, with the notable exception of the AWD system. Which is a little scarey, admittedly.

 

Color options ... in and out