Mini Australia to add Paceman from 2013

MINI Australia will add a three-door sports coupe based on the Countryman compact SUV to its growing line-up from next year.

The BMW-owned company revealed to GoAuto this week that a production version of the Paceman concept first seen as a concept at the Detroit show in January last year has been given the green light and will come to our shores from 2013.

The new low-roof model, which is expected to go into production in Europe later this year, is built on the same platform as the five-door, all-wheel-drive Countryman, and will give the niche brand a potential rival for the three-door Range Rover Evoque.

Mini Australia’s recently appointed national manager Kai Bruesewitz told GoAuto this week that the car was “a continuation of the Countryman model, but more sports-oriented”.

The arrival of the Paceman will expand the Mini range to seven models – up from just the single Hatch bodystyle in 2002 – and the British-based brand is unlikely to stop there.

Mr Bruesewitz said Mini was keen to continue its push into new model niches, but stopped short of saying exactly what they were.

“We want to expand the overall volume by the end of this decade and therefore our colleagues in Munich are thinking in various directions,” he said.

“I wouldn’t go necessarily higher (larger) than the Countryman/Paceman, but … who would have thought that we would have come up with two two-seater models, or the Paceman? If we go fifteen months back we only had three models.” BMW described the Mini Paceman concept in Detroit as the first ‘sports activity coupe’ in the small-car segment, blending lifestyle elements with premium quality.

While the concept had the raised crossover stance of the Countryman, its sloping windscreen, rising beltline, sloping roof and three-door configuration gave it a more coupe-like profile.

The four-seater concept was 4110mm long, 1789mm wide and 1541mm high, making it 396mm longer, 106mm wider and 134mm taller than the Cooper S Hatch, as well as 13mm longer and 20mm lower than Countryman.

The concept was fitted with the familiar 155kW/260Nm 1.6-litre turbocharged engine seen in John Cooper Works versions of the Coupe, Roadster and Hatch.

The concept also had the Countryman’s optional ALL4 permanent all-wheel-drive system, with electromagnetic centre differential to vary power distribution between the front and rear axles according to need.