I agree with Eric except that I don't think a stripped down MINI would compete with the GP at all, and only slightly with the JCW. The GP3 will be very expensive, and has all the performance bells and whistles BMW is willing to throw at it. It's really not a platform for modding so much as a finished product. The stripped down version could be optioned and modded to one's heart's content, over time, and still be substantially cheaper than a GP, provided the aftermarket embraced it (or was able to embrace it, depending on what MINI does with the car). The price points between the two are so extreme I think you'd see very little cross shopping. The JCW would obviously fall somewhere in between. I would love to see it. It won't happen though; BMW has a different business model in mind for MINI, and rather than encourage the aftermarket business they've instead tried to become the aftermarket go to for the MINI, first by buying the JCW name, then by coming up with a plethora of options that used to be in the aftermarket's domain. They've already jumped the shark (and ironically made a MINI that looks like a fish along the way), there's no going back.
BMW continues to defrock the MINI and make it into a true "Bimmer Lite", in which the pricing will go even higher. What a load of garbage....:frown2:
The "sedan" idea was tried on the Classic Mini, to become either the Riley Elf or Wolseley Hornet. I can remember seeing these scooting around, when I was a kid in the U.K.
I want Mini to make money, and how I wish the classic could still be made, but this shows BMW has lost touch of what the brand stands for. If your old enough, and most of us here are old, then you have seen this happen with other companies. They lose touch with what made them popular, lose direction then the company is gone. After that the morons in charge say " there just wasn't a market for the car", there was you just didn't have the car for that market any more. I can't help and wander if Jim McDowell saw the hand writing on the wall. Mini sure was a lot funner with him around. [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYM6-RkHTCs"]MINI USA | MINI vs Porsche - YouTube[/ame]