Mini attempts to define its future product portfolio. Bringing Mini back from the dead in 2001 was far from easy for parent company BMW and its R&D department. The Cooper turned out to be an automotive phenomenon at the time and a massive sales success, but the following models were not so lucky.
The arrival of the second-gen models contributed to the fact that sales were up 10 percent in 2015. But most new Minis simply haven’t been as hot as those first cars were. It’s easy to understand why to a certain extent; the hype and excitement around the brand has died down. To reshape the brand Mini focused on the social framework in which its cars operate. The brand prepares five “superhero” models conceived as must-have cars for the well-heeled digital generation.
The current list of potential Mini “superheroes” is constituted of: the MiniMini, the Coolbox, the Roomba, the Superleggera, the Traveller. Of these five the MiniMini, Roomba, and Superleggera are frontrunners for production, although the Roomba is definitely more maxi than Mini, the Superleggera would almost certainly bust budgets, and the MiniMini has no suitable platform it can dock on as of now.
Clearly Mini is struggling to come up with a product portfolio that takes the brand to the next level. However it moves forward, there needs to be some serious substance to the lifestyle-oriented world of Mini in the form of cars that are as interesting and they are enticing — just like they were when the brand first came back.
