In 1959, the Mini was introduced to the European market by the British Motor Corporation and went on to become an icon of the 1960's. In 2000 though, the production of these cheap family cars were stopped as sales started going down. But the following year, BMW resurrected the brand name under their company and now uses MINI as its name. And another change that you would find is that these cars are no longer at entry level but placed in the premium section of the market.
Since that time, the MINI brand once again gained prominence among car buyers. The brand's biggest market to this day remains to be the United Kingdom but its popularity is currently increasing in other markets around the world.
Evidence of the success for the resurrected brand is the sales record breaking figures that the company has posted last month. Another proof of MINI's success is that its millionth car since being re-introduced to the market in July of 2001 rolled out of their assembly plant early April. For the month of March this year, MINI sold 7,689 vehicles which raised their year to date sale to 11,568 vehicles. That figure is 16 percent more than their sales output for the same period in 2007. That shows that MINI is once again on track to set an annual sales record for this year.
To meet the increasing demand for MINI models, the company's assembly plant in Oxford is expected to increase its annual production to 240,000 vehicles this year. This estimated increase in production is expected to generate 450 additional jobs at the Oxford plant.
The MINI units produced at the Oxford plant cater to the demand of 80 countries around the world and that is considered to be a testament to the popularity of the MINI brand. The United Kingdom is the biggest consumer of MINI vehicles with annual sales in the region amounting to 45,000 vehicles. Coming in second is the United States with annual sales of about 42,000 vehicles. The third largest market for MINI is Germany where they average to sell 30,000 vehicles every year. This huge demand from other countries is evident in the fact that 80 percent of MINI vehicles made in Britain are for export.
Initially, for the 2007 model year, MINI only offers two models - the MINI Cooper and the MINI Cooper S. The MINI Cooper is powered by a 1.6-liter engine while the Cooper S is equipped with a turbocharger. Increasing these vehicles' power and fuel efficiently is just a matter of fitting aftermarket parts such as system to these vehicles. Currently though, the engineers of BMW are on track to provide more MINI models to the market including the MINI One and the MINI Cooper D.
Aside from these gasoline engine powered vehicles, MINI is also expected to increase the production of diesel powered vehicles in the near future as the demand for these fuel efficient vehicles increases.
