Mini compact sedan on the way?

[TN ;x]

Superleggera roadster still on the back burner, but the sedan is an easier sell We've teased Mini from time to time about offering an Austin Maxi-style sedan (badged as a Riley Kestrel or a Wolseley 2000), and now it looks like the company is seriously thinking about it. Automotive News reports the Anglo-German carmaker is considering a compact sedan to round out its lineup. "It is a question you have to look at economically, and around the world you could say the sedan has the biggest potential, volumewise," Peter Schwarzenbauer, BMW board member in charge of Mini, said in an interview with Automotive News during the launch of the 2016 Mini convertible. A sedan would allow the brand to expand to markets where expensive hatches are a far tougher sell, while leveraging BMW's compact UKL platform. But the company is not shelving plans for the Superleggera roadster either.

"Economically it is easier to put a sedan on paper than a great halo car," Schwarzenbauer added. "We have to look at all the options." Mini is in the process of trimming its lineup, and is expected to ditch the Paceman to focus on the Countryman, Clubman, Convertible and two versions of the Cooper hatch. While the Superleggera roadster has been on the back burner for some time now, Mini has not definitively picked a fifth model to round out its lineup. A potential sedan would likely be based on the Clubman, to distance itself from the four-door hardtop which has turned out to be far closer to the hatch in terms of packaging than was expected.