Mini nameplates likely to stay and likely to go
| Nameplate | 2014 Output* | What's next |
| Hatch | ||
| 3-door | 150,937 | New generation 2014 |
| 5-door | 30,456 | Added 2014 |
| Countryman | 102,875 | Redesign due 2016-17 |
| Convertible | 16,089 | Redesign due 2015 |
| Paceman | 11,217 | Likely to be cut |
| Clubman | 7,962 | Redesign due 2015 |
| Coupe | 2,404 | Production ends 2015 |
| Roadster | 2,886 | Production ends 2015 |
| * IHS Automotive estimates | ||
To boost Mini's prospects of long-term profitability, parent BMW Group has decided the British brand needs to shrink its lineup to four nameplates from seven.
BMW also will simplify Mini's platform and plant lineup.
Mini is expected to discontinue three slow-selling nameplates -- the Coupe, Roadster and Paceman -- so it can concentrate on the four that accounted for about 95 percent of the nearly 325,000 vehicles it built last year, according to data from IHS Automotive.
Mini's Countryman (pictured) and Convertible are likely to remain in the pared-down lineup as the brand sheds slow-selling nameplates.
BMW Group does not report individual financial results for the BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce brands, which has left analysts wondering whether Mini has ever made money.
"BMW has struggled to make Mini into a profit center from the beginning," said Max Warburton, an auto analyst at Bernstein Research. He said that Mini's cars are built on a low-volume platform and that the automaker has undergone "all sorts of complex model line proliferation -- it's hardly a recipe for making money, at least compared to some of their BMW-branded products."
Mini's industrial matrix is complex. It builds seven nameplates underpinned by three platforms in three plants and has had an average annual volume of about 313,000 vehicles in the past three years.
Warburton expects Mini to become more financially viable once it starts offering a smaller, more consistent range underpinned by a single architecture, which will be shared by BMW brand models such as the 2-series Active Tourer and the next-generation 1 series.
Peter Schwarzenbauer, the BMW board member in charge of Mini, has been a strong advocate for radical review of the Mini range.
"It is important to find the right balance between growth and profitability," he said late last year while announcing that Mini's range would be trimmed.
Schwarzenbauer has pushed for lineup changes.
Schwarzenbauer said Mini will focus on "superhero" vehicles including the three- and five-door models of its core Hatch, the Countryman and the Clubman station wagon, which will be renewed this year.
"Like a superhero, each of these cars has its own personality and unique capabilities," Schwarzenbauer said, without identifying which Minis would be cut and when.
However, Oliver Friedmann, Mini's head of product management, told Automotive News
Europe that the Coupe, Roadster and Paceman are not "a priority" in the automaker's renewal program.
The Coupe and Roadster were conceived as small-volume variants to help maintain interest in the brand as it transitioned to the fourth generation of its top-seller, the three-door Hatch, which debuted last year. IHS Automotive expects Mini to discontinue the Coupe and Roadster this year.
Separately, Mini chief designer Anders Warming has mentioned the possibility of another vehicle joining the lineup. He has talked about a city car, family car, crossover and convertible.
Mini also is counting on a profit boost from a radical industrial reorganization of its main factory in Oxford, England, that has boosted daily output to 1,000 vehicles from about 700. A key part of that was the switch to making cars using BMW Group's UKL platform at the plant. The first Mini cars to be underpinned by the UKL architecture are the new three- and five-door Hatches.
The second-generation Clubman also will use the platform when production starts in Oxford this year. The new Clubman will switch to what Mini calls a six-door layout, with four traditional doors for passengers and a two-door split tailgate. The current Clubman is a five-door model. Oxford builds the Convertible, Coupe and Roadster using the platform BMW created to relaunch the Mini brand in 2001.
Magna Steyr's plant in Graz, Austria, builds the Countryman and Paceman using a dedicated platform. BMW confirmed it will build another model in Graz after it shifts the next-generation Countryman to another plant.
IHS expects production of the new Countryman to start in 2016 at the VDL NedCar plant in Born, Netherlands. VDL began producing the Mini three-door Hatch in July 2014 using the UKL platform. Mini said that over time VDL will become the automaker's second-largest plant, but that Oxford will remain "the heart of Mini production."
Nick Gibbs, Pia Krix and Bloomberg contributed to this report.
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