Does anyone know or know where to find sales figures for the Roadster? I have a 2013, and was wondering how many Roadsters were made that year ( and other years), and how many were sold in the US. Just curious.

 

This old thread had sales figures for each MINI model. Unless you need very exact figures, this should give you a very close approximation of the number produced each year. (In any case, apparently not enough to keep the roadster in production after 2014).


https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...s-figures.html

 

Thanks Kenny

 

silly question but is there a way to know the production number of each roadster? I don't mean a reference number. I mean if you had to count them since the beginning what manufacturing number would be your or our Roadster?

I'm only saying this because from the latest news our roadster might become rarer things than anticipated so it would be nice to be able to count them

 

TG:


According to the NAM VIN Decoder: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...vindecoder.php
the last 6 digits indicate the specific vehicle within the year/make/model, and looks like it might be the "production order number".


Based on this, it would appear my 2014 (built in the 2nd half of 2013)was almost the 6000th Roadster produced, which makes sense for the 2nd year of production at +/- 250 or so per month.

 

Mine was build in July 2013 (likely the 1st or 2nd week of July) and my last 4 digits are in the 4700 so I don't know if that matches what you're saying or not (?) . . . though right in front of it I can see the [59] which I'm guessing reference R59

 

Yes, that's what I'm saying... both of ours were built within weeks of each other, and my last 6 VIN digits are 200 more than yours.


If the 59XXXX is the production order number (ignore the last two digits), it would be the count. If the 59 refers to the R59, the last 4 digits would be the count. Only way to tell for sure is if someone with a 2013 doesn't have a 59 in their last 6 VIN digits.

 

That's kind of cool. On additional way to tell would be to see if other roadster owner have a same incremental number based on when they bought it.

ours is actually 4747

 

If your VIN doesn't end in 00, the last 4 digits are the production number. You have the 4,747 one made, I have the 4,900th one made.

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btw, I had sent an email to "ask MINI" about what model number would my car be just to see if we could get some form of confirmation. I think it's through MINI USA. I gave them my VIN and my production number.
Here is what they said:

"We appreciate your interest in acquiring sales and production information. Unfortunately, our policy does not permit us to release this data. While we realize this is not the response you anticipated, we hope you understand our position."

To be honest I'm not sure I actually understand what is the big secret here . . . especially if what we are discussing here is indeed within the VIN number.
Perhaps it's just too big of a pain to look for it, or they don't have easy access to the data, and that's the general answer they are told to use.

I'm tempted to send the same email to MINI corporate some how...

 

TG:


Sounds like a case of pure CorporateSpeak to me!


I doubt you'll get any more info from MINI corporate (who do you think Ask MINI works for???) We just need one other Roadster owner to chime in with the last 6 digits if their VIN and date of production to test our hypothesis...


I also checked with the BMW archive http://www.bmwarchive.org/, wher you can put in the last 5 VIN digits and it gives you everything you wanted to know about your MINI build (even a picture!) but unfortunately, no info on production numbers.

 

09-2013 build. First two of last six digits are 56. The last four are greater than 6400.

 

the 56 obviously creates some doubts while the 6400 could possibly still fit the 4 last digits hypothesis though it start to be a lot of cars in just two month... yes yes we need more people to solve the riddle. Come on folks, please participate

 

HS:

Actually that seems to fit the model. Your roadster was built about 4-6 weeks after mine, and would be the 5,664th one made. +/- some variation in the production runs, that seem pretty close to what would be expected!

 

I don't know... from the sales figure, I have a hard time seeing that many roadster being build... I'm not saying it's not the case. just that it seems like a lot of roadster from the negative sale figures that have been talked about in many auto reviews...

If they make 250 roadster every month top, and mine was roughly 4750 in early July, then 2 month later it's only 5250 not quite 6400!

But I also don't know if the sales figures I've heard are only US or Global...

I always use to think convertible production would be much higher in winter-spring with the tail end in mid summer rather than late summer.
Than again there's lots of end year sales too I guess...


Need more DATA!

 

I can't help it. I had to dig a little more.
I found actual global sales report:

2012 - 9,202 roadster build
2013 - 9,315 roadster build
2014 (through June 30th) - 2,795 roadster build (compared to 5,219 through June 30th, 2013)

So if there is any relation to the VIN# I wonder if it is within the year . . . though ours was not build in June 2013 but July... If there is any relation it would have to be market specific.


Reference:

http://www.bmwgroup.com/e/0_0_www_bm...berblick.shtml

http://www.bmwgroup.com/bmwgroup_pro...report2013.pdf

http://www.bmwgroup.com/e/0_0_www_bm...ngl_Online.pdf

 

Thanks TG.

 

Oh and on this link it shows production year for R59:
http://www.bmwarchive.org/e-code/r59.html

2012 - 2019

 

According to my silly calculation ours would be the 21,466 MINI roadster ever made . . .

 

Yes, and it showed the production for the Paceman going through 2020...until they killed it a few weeks ago!

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dream crusher . . .

 

On the other hand, the Roadster sales volume is almost 3X the sales volume of Rolls Royce, and BMW certainly isn't going to pull the plug on that!

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But how many roadster can you buy with one Rolls Roys?

 

Alright, I dusted off my own junior detective kit and have concluded the following:

The last 7 digits of a BMW VIN are a unique chassis number. They are sequential but are in groups determined by market, model, trim, and transmission.

For example a US Roadster S with Auto has a chassis number up to T595390 or so and starting somewhere before T593500.

With a manual the number begins T56

US non-S manual begins T71
US non-S auto begins T62

I have no idea what the JCW chassis numbers are nor any of the six versions for every other world market. You'd have to find them all and add them up. Or get access to the BMW VIN database with query ability. And btw, there are multiple sites that allow you to type in the last seven digits and see the specifics of that car, but the results between sites don't agree even on model. Go figure.

It would appear that MINIUSA released no official sales numbers for September, November, or December of last year but resumed monthly releases for January of this year.

Don't ask for links for any of this as I didn't save them and won't search for them again for less than eight million euros deposited in an offshore account.

I can't in any way be certain than all or any of these conclusions are accurate, but I can at least assure you that none of them are based on speculation.

 

The last seven digits in the VIN for my manual 2012, built March 2012 are T1449XX. Not sure what that means. I did some poking around here:
http://www.bmwarchive.org/vin/bmw-vin-decoder.html

All the VINs I tried from T144900 up to T144999 seem to be Roadster S's, with build dates between February 29, 2012 (even rarer, built on a leap day!) and April 2, 2014.

T144000 is also a Roadster S, built 24th Jan 2012.

Before that number in the T14XXXX's it's a mix of coupes and Roadsters.

I was interested now, so I tried a few more:
T140000 is a Coupe S, built 24th October 2011.
T141000 is a JCW Coupe, built 16th December 2011.
T142000 is a Coupe SD, built April 12th, 2012.
T143000 is a justa Roadster, built 28th Jan 2012.

Didn't find a Roadster S before T144000 though, so maybe that's number 1? If that's the case, then mine may be in the first thousand "S" cars. Pretty cool!

I went back a bit further, and the earliest Coupe I found was:
T137500 is a justa Coupe, built 21st October 2011

Poke around, it's fun!