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BMW is examining proposals for a new Mini GTI, based on the upcoming Mini Crossover model due next year.

The new front-drive machine would slot in just below established favourites such as the VW Golf GTI, offering a more compact – but equally well engineered – package.

It’s too early to say definitively how the car will be priced, but it could be around 10 per cent cheaper than a similarly specified and similarly powerful Golf GTI, according to early projections.

If it’s gi...Read the full article

So BMW goes front wheel drive at last.

Guess Mini has no meaning now, it is just a name, like Orange is to a phone company.

Fugly is the word for this car. What is wrong with the people who styled this car are they blind?

230SL:

So BMW goes front wheel drive at last.

Guess Mini has no meaning now, it is just a name, like Orange is to a phone company.

They could always revive the "Maxi" name, that was a much wrongly maligned car; if you got one that wasn't a "friday afternoon" special (and there weren't many) they were a good drive with the 1750cc engine and the Hydroelastic suspension.

Dreadful styling.

Brooklands:

Fugly is the word for this car. What is wrong with the people who styled this car are they blind?

You do realise this is a speculative image and not the real car, don't you? If not, you have to ask who's really the blind one here ...

 I love the look of it, I think you are all blind.  Hell of a lot better looking than the oh-so-boring new Golf GTi, which somehow looks worse than its predecessor

They are bleeding the brand dry

Ruined it, they will kill it in the end

julianphillips:

 I love the look of it, I think you are all blind.  Hell of a lot better looking than the oh-so-boring new Golf GTi, which somehow looks worse than its predecessor

I don't know if I love it, but I must admit I thought I was the only who thought it didn't look that bad. Good to see there's at least two of us.

The thing with Mini is that the perception of the brand of has changed of the in the eyes of some car fans. When BMW first resurrected the brand (and did such a good job) there was a lot of support for Mini. But since then with the "estate agents" factor and the fact BMW has tried to make the brand more viable economically and ensure that the its FWD floorplan can make money (God forbid) by introducing variants of Mini, it seems to have fallen foul of some of the "purists", me thinks. Could be wrong though.

Richard H:

They are bleeding the brand dry

Ruined it, they will kill it in the end

 

 

how you can say this i dont know! i mean come on, when the car first came out people said it will never work. 

The  press always discribed it as the GERMAN MINI, then after about 2 road tests, it became "BRITAINS NEW BABY"

If it wasnt for BMW the brand would already be dead, and Rolls Royce would be buildign some hidious Continental GT spin off! 

Frankly i think BMW have done a bloody good job with both brands and will keep them alive where many others would have failed. 

BMW do seem to be stretching it a bit - a 5 door mini fair enough, I can see the demand, better idea that than the 'put your kid in the road suicide door' on the current stretched variant, and it doesnt need a stupid name, and as for GTI moniker, whats wrong with the Mini Cooper S 5dr?

The other variants need throwing in the bin - I can understand the need for a compact 4x4, but isn't that what the X1 is for?

Colonel Snappy:

Brooklands:

Fugly is the word for this car. What is wrong with the people who styled this car are they blind?

You do realise this is a speculative image and not the real car, don't you? If not, you have to ask who's really the blind one here ...

What's the need to be so rude you ignorant sod, there is no mention of this being a speculative image in the story. I don't live my life on car websites as I have a life. I wasn't aware this wasn't the official image, as Autocar didn't have the decency to say so. All you needed to mention was it wasn't an official photo, but that was too easy. What an A-hole!!