Auto Express have been one of many media outlets lately who, realising the incredible pull the MINI still has, have come up with some pretty dramatic and apparently largely unfounded stories concerning our favourite little car. The first story claimed that the MINI Cross (Crossman, SAV, Crossover, call it what you will) will definitely come in John Cooper Works form. While this wasn’t actually confirmed as such, BMW have said that they intend all future MINI models to have a John Cooper Works model available, so it does stand to reason that this should happen. When, and in what form, who knows. Perhaps a powerful version of the MINI SAV with four wheel drive and John Cooper Works badging will convince a few doubters of its place in the MINI family. Perhaps not.
More sensationally, despite MINI and Fiat both recently attempting to quash rumours of any future plans to platform share, particularly between MINI and Alfa Romeo, as had been the hot rumour recently, Auto Express and one of their fleet of talented Photoshop image providers came up with the MINI Spirit. This cross between the MINI Clubman and Daewoo (or Chevrolet) Matiz will apparently be part of a new range of cars that will share platforms and technology with Fiat, offering battery power similar to that found in the MINI E, rear wheel drive, and all sorts of other wondrous and fantastical technologies.
While the prospects of MINI embracing the ideas of alternative technologies and attempting to take motoring a step forward, as the original Mini did in 1959, is very enticing, such a huge step in such a small timeframe, with so little evidence is surely too good to be true. Perhaps they were looking at archive images of the Mini Spiritual concepts (seen on the right here) and got all dreamy about what might have been?
MINI parent company BMW have just held their annual accounts press conference, and it’s bad news for just about everyone concerned, with pay cuts for those who do manage to keep hold of their jobs, nobody seems in a particularly buoyant frame of mind. Attempts were made to quell the increasingly rife suggestions that Daimler-Chrysler and BMW could be on the brink of a share swap to strengthen the position of both companies in the difficult World financial climate.
Also coming from the conference was further discussion concerning BMWs planned “Megacity” vehicles, which could be released as early as “the first half of next decade”, according to BMW chairman Norbert Reithofer. The Megacity vehicle(s) will be the next tangible step in BMWs “Project i”, of which the MINI E is currently the leading light. This also helps put pay to the rumours from Auto Express concerning the electric MINI/Fiat cross bread, as this would surely be part of the Project i initiative.
Tags: bmw, fiat, mini e, Norbert Reithofer, project i
