Currently reading: First five-door Mini hatchback built in Oxford
New five-door Mini will go on sale in the UK in October, priced from £15,900, and will be pitched squarely at the Audi A1

The first five-door Mini hatchback has been built at the firm's Oxfordshire factory.

The new five-door Mini, which joins the already-launched three-door model when it goes on sale this October, is being built for the first time at Mini's Cowley site. The move is part of a £750 million investment programme across BMW's UK production sites, which started in 2011 and will finish next year.

Business secretary Vince Cable said the plan was "a further boost for the UK's manufacturing sector."

Priced from £15,900, BMW officials believe the five-door hatch could outsell the three-door by a factor of three to one, eventually accounting for around 150,000 units annually.

The five-door Mini is 161mm longer than the three-door model, and also offers an extra 15mm of headroom inside. One of the biggest gains has been upping the five-door's boot capacity to 278 litres, making it competitive against the Audi A1 - a model which Mini sees as its key rival.

Read more about the five-door Mini hatchback and see exclusive studio pictures, here.

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peterover 2 July 2014

@289 you obviously have an

@289 you obviously have an axe to grind and spend far to long commenting on anything you dislike on the net. Suggest you get in your car and drive more!
289 2 July 2014

@peterover

Please do not presume to know me or my 'motives'
I have no axe to grind, spend very little time 'on the net', but exercise my right to have an opinion, whether you agree or not, and cover just over 35 k per year. So I won't be taking your impertinent advice to "drive more"
In short, get lost!
Daniel Joseph 2 July 2014

Cognitive dissonance?

Well, I'm shocked at having allowed myself to be so deceived. I shall be returning my MINI immediately. While I'm at it, I'll also return my iPad and iPhone as they turned out not to be items of fruit...
concinnity 2 July 2014

Cognitive dissonance and MINI

'Mini is a brand, not a size descriptor'. No. Just because you can write something doesn't make it true. Mini is a brand AND a size descriptor. Mini means small and tiny before it means a brand. Not reflecting the actual meaning of the word in the brand's products makes as much sense as Boeing bringing out a line of small business jets and calling them 'Jumbos'. Which they could since they currently make a plane with that 'branding'. There is too much cognitive dissonance. It is the same situation as a German carmaker with the name 'People's Car' bringing out a superluxury large car, which might be called 'Phaeton' and expecting it to be a success, no matter how well it's made.Too much cognitive dissonance.