India might see Mini Cooper in 2012

Good news for car fans. President, Dr. Andreas Schaaf, BMW India, has been persuading top officials at BMW to launch the Mini Cooper in India, and the time has come, for the car’s heading towards India soon. The Mini Cooper would be launched by BMW at some point next year. The variants heading for India are still not known, but the probability of the Mini Cooper coming to India is more.

The Mini Cooper’s inception was in 1959. British Leyland formerly owned the brand. At some point, they sold it to Rover Group, then British Aerospace and finally BMW AG bought it.

Indian market for premium hatches hasn’t been favourable and BMW already knows that and expects small volume sales when it launches the Mini here. Even Volkswagen and Fiat have been through the same situation when it came to selling their Beetle and Fiat 500 respectively. The Fiat 500 was very well received in Europe, but didn’t do that well in India. The Fiat 500 costs less than the Beetle. This could be due to not promoting the car extensively through advertising.

Mini Cooper in IndiaIndia’s car market is heading for a slow but gradual change from that perspective. Companies like Merc are launching their B-Class next year in June and Audi too is not far behind as they’re planning to launch Audi A3.

The Mini Cooper could cost Rs. 18 lakhs.

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