MINI Clubman Announced at Geneva

Press Release

Based on Mini Concept Geneva

The world’s most successful small car premium brand will boost its appeal even further with the European launch of an all-new model before the end of the year.

The new MINI Clubman is developed from the MINI Concept Geneva revealed one year ago in Switzerland.

Just 12 months later MINI is not only naming the new production car but it is also announcing the goal of increasing sales from the record number of 200,000 units in 2005, to a figure beyond this tally for the year, thanks to the successful launch of the 2007 New MINI Cooper and MINI Cooper S models.

In Europe, where MINI sells the majority of its models, the new MINI One and MINI Cooper D will join the New MINI hardtops and the MINI Cabrio, before the MINI Clubman arrives.

The MINI Clubman is described as a Shooting Brake concept, a body designation that refers to a coupe-style two-door car that has an elongated rear. The MINI Concept Geneva was subtly modified to suit three further major International Motor Shows, Frankfurt, Tokyo and Detroit, reflecting the expected world-wide appeal of the new model.

The five-year old MINI brand is accelerating in popularity so the Plant Oxford production facility was expanded in mid-2006 to allow for growth beyond the already extended 200,000 cars a year capacity.

The 2006 modifications to the plant will eventually allow for a 20 percent capacity increase. This move to increase capacity underlines the BMW Group’s confidence in the on-going success of the MINI brand.

“We assume that the MINI brand will become even more important for the BMW Group’s retail volume,” Dr Michael Ganal, Member of the Board of Management for BMW Group said, speaking at the MINI stand at the Geneva Motor Show, yesterday.

“Last year, MINI accounted for almost 14 per cent of the Group’s automotive retail volume. In its home market Great Britain, the share was even more than 24 per cent.

“We expect to reach a new MINI retail record for the overall year 2007. So, in other words, we are going to outperform our 2005 record of over 200,000 vehicles.

“In the first two months of this year, we have delivered almost 26,000 MINI vehicles to customers worldwide.

“It is our goal to achieve a retail volume of over 240,000 units in the medium term. We will meet this goal, among other things, by launching attractive new products. A further driver of retail growth will be another MINI model.

“We already gave you a foretaste exactly one year ago when I presented the MINI Concept Geneva here at the Geneva Motor Show. This MINI Shooting Brake has meanwhile been developed to series production maturity. So again, we have managed to successfully interpret an authentic MINI concept. The new member of the MINI product family will be launched before the end of the year as the MINI Clubman. Yesterday, we let the MINI Clubman off the leash for a short time so that it could get used to life on the road.

“The MINI Clubman will share all the characteristic genes of the new MINI generation as regards authenticity, design and go-kart feeling. So it is an unmistakable MINI and at the same time a stand-alone, unique concept sporting specific attributes and typical MINI solutions,” Dr Ganal said.