Last 2013 MINI leaves the production line to make way for the new 2014 MINI

The last 2013 MINI rolls off MINI’s production line

It’s only ten days since the all new 2014 MINI was revealed, but already production of the current MINI – launched in 2006 – has ended at MINI’s production plant in Oxford. It’s hard to believe, but the current generation of the MIN I has sold over 1 million around the globe in the seven years since it launched, and the BMW MINI – since its re-birth in 2001 – has shifted a grand total of 1,863,289 MINI hatches and 2.4 million MINIs have been built in Oxford since 2001.

When the current, 2nd generation BMW MINI, was launched in 2006, it brought with it new turbocharged engines and suspension tweaks to make sure the then ‘new’ MINI continued to offer all the things that make MINI special, but in a more grow-up way.

That included seemingly countless different iterations on the MINI theme, perhaps most notably a completely different body (and size) in the MINI Countryman. All those different MINIs has seen the MINI succeed around the world, and the current MINI is responsible for 14 per cent of all UK car manufacturing and 14 per cent of all car exports.

But now the new MINI is here, and it looks to be taking MINI even more mainstream, even if – certainly in the way it looks – the successful recreation of the original MINI’s DNA seems intact.

Whether it will stay intact as BMW try to push the MINI envelope further still with even more variants of the 2014 MINI than MINIs past remains to be seen.

But the 2014 MINI Hatch, due to launch in Spring 2014, looks set to be as appealing as the last of the current crop of MINIs, but with more technology, more room and, perhaps, more appeal to more buyers.

By Cars UK