MINI Countryman; Paceman in 2012, WRC Edition

  • Thread starter Thread starter Joey D
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Looks like they'll leave no stone unturned. Is there any difference in purpose between the Paceman and the standard Cooper?
 
Philly
Looks like they'll leave no stone unturned. Is there any difference in purpose between the Paceman and the standard Cooper?
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The Paceman will be a 3 door version of the Countryman, so basically a Cooper with higher suspension and all-wheel drive.
 
^or a Golf GTI alternative.

Let's hope the Countryman "WRC" has at least 300HP. We need another car to run with the Mitsubishis and Subarus in Gp. N...
 
Jim Prower
^or a Golf GTI alternative.

Let's hope the Countryman "WRC" has at least 300HP. We need another car to run with the Mitsubishis and Subarus in Gp. N...
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They'd need more engine in order to get 300hp reliably out of it. The WRC car still only has a 1.6L engine it in and trying to street something like seems like a bad idea.
 
I literally don't get the point of the Paceman. BMW seem to be applying their normal niche-filling to the MINI brand too. The idea of the Countryman was to add practicality to the MINI brand... so now they've made their practical car less practical buy removing a couple of doors...
 
Again, VW makes a 3-door and 5-door Golf. Since the 1-series is vastly more popular as the Coupe/Convertible, I assume this suppliants the 1-series Hatches, to some extent.
 
homeforsummer
I literally don't get the point of the Paceman. BMW seem to be applying their normal niche-filling to the MINI brand too. The idea of the Countryman was to add practicality to the MINI brand... so now they've made their practical car less practical buy removing a couple of doors...
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It's to gain buyers in the US, we still love our SUV's but we don't want to pay to fill them up with fuel. Small, three door SUV's are a niche market but I can't even think of one that is for sale in the US currently so BMW could capture some potential buyers.

I don't know, I like it but I don't know if I'd actually buy one.
 
But it's not an SUV. It's a 3-5 door C-segment hatch with AWD as an option and a little more ride height.
 
They classify it as an SUV though and it's marketed it as one. It's what the buyer will see it as too.
 
homeforsummer
I literally don't get the point of the Paceman. BMW seem to be applying their normal niche-filling to the MINI brand too. The idea of the Countryman was to add practicality to the MINI brand... so now they've made their practical car less practical buy removing a couple of doors...
Click to expand...

I assume the idea is that it's a Countryman without the terrifying looks.

(A garish blue coloured one drove round a corner at me today and caused me to vomit)
 
At least the Countryman looks vaguely purposeful, and like I said, it's practical.

The Paceman looks like someone took a regular MINI, strangled it, and dumped it in a river. Days later its bloated corpse was found by passers by, and MINI thought "Hmm! Saves us paying someone to design it!".

I can see vaguely how there'll be a market for it. In fact, I can totally see a market for it. You could put the MINI badge on a dog turd and people would pay for it because the brand has a strong image.

And Jim, as others have mentioned, MINI are marketing this as a crossover, not a strict Golf rival. The Paceman seems more of a niche-filler than a rival for anything.
 

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