Article Abstract
- MINI has surpassed 1 million autos offered within the US since its official March 22, 2002 launch, confirmed by Experian Automotive registration information.
- The primary retail MINI offered in America was a red-and-white Cooper delivered in Boston — ordered by a collector who noticed it on the Detroit Auto Present and knew instantly.
- From a 1999 Guinness stunt to parking brake slides at a New York press convention, MINI constructed its American following on persona as a lot as product.
Twenty-five years. 1,000,000 automobiles. And someplace in a Boston storage, there’s a red-and-white MINI Cooper that began all of it. MINI is marking its twenty fifth anniversary as a contemporary model this yr, and the timing strains up with a genuinely spectacular quantity: the corporate has formally surpassed 1 million autos offered in the US since gross sales started right here on March 22, 2002. That’s based mostly on Experian Automotive registration information.
MINI first grabbed American consideration on the 2001 Detroit Auto Present, the place the reborn model was launched to the American market. The unique fashionable Cooper was small at a time when every little thing was getting larger, rear-wheel-drive optionally available, and principally truck-shaped. However BMW had performed the seemingly inconceivable: taken a beloved British icon, rebuilt it from scratch in Germany, and one way or the other not screwed it up.
The primary retail unit offered within the US was delivered by MINI of Peabody to a collector within the Boston space who’d apparently been obsessed because the Detroit debut. He ordered it pink with a white roof — a nod to the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally-winning Mini.
A number of the tales MINI is revisiting this week are genuinely value realizing. The Convertible’s New York debut in April 2004 concerned two automobiles doing parking brake slides into place in entrance of the Javits Heart throughout an out of doors press convention. Earlier than the trendy model had even offered a automobile within the US, lovers in New York Metropolis crammed 25 individuals right into a traditional Mini to interrupt a Guinness World Report.
MINI Takes the States turns 20 this yr. The 2024 model introduced near 2,000 homeowners by means of the western US over 9 days, with a median of 650 automobiles leaving collectively every morning. If you happen to’ve by no means seen a MINI convoy in full road-trip mode, it’s a particular type of chaotic pleasure that’s arduous to be cynical about.
The lineup is far larger now — Cooper, Cooper S, Countryman, Convertible, and the electrical variants which have been slowly taking on. It’s a special firm in some methods. However get behind the wheel of a Cooper S on an honest highway and the factor that made the unique work in 2002 continues to be there. Mild, linked, pointedly not making an attempt to be a crossover.
A million People paid cash for that feeling. Not a foul run.
