MINI crosses borders, enters new dimensions of driving pleasure, and wins over additional target groups.
Once again, MINI achieves all this by consistently expanding the model range and through the unconventional creativity of MINI design. Just a few months prior to the launch of the brand’s fourth model announced for autumn 2010, MINI is now demonstrating its potential for further enhancement of driving pleasure and diversity through another spectacular concept car: the concept of a brand-new type of vehicle proudly presented by MINI at the North American International Auto Show (16-24 January 2010) in Detroit.
The MINI Beachcomber Concept is a four-seater concept car designed consistently for maximum driving pleasure, taking up the enhanced options of the new MINI and combining these potentials with the vision of a radically open body concept.
ALL4 all-wheel drive and the variable interior give the MINI Beachcomber Concept abilities absolutely ideal for a spontaneous and active experience of freedom and leisure time. The potential offered by the car’s modern drivetrain technology and space concept is used here to the greatest possible extent to ensure a highly emotional driving experience. Hence, the MINI Beachcomber Concept consistently does without doors, a conventional roof and all other body elements which might possibly limit the intensity of the occupants’ encounter with their surrounding world. This makes the driver and up to three passengers one harmonious entity communicating directly with their surroundings - whether cruising through town, enjoying rough tracks in the mountains, or breezing along the beach.
The MINI Beachcomber Concept combines all-wheel drive with cutting-edge suspension technology, numerous body elements serving to make the car extra-strong and robust, as well as an elevated seating position. Generous spring travel and extra-large light-alloy wheels raise the entire car to a higher level. Access to the front and rear seats is nevertheless exceptionally convenient and easy thanks to the omission of doors and the entry cutouts extending all the way down to the seat bottoms, allowing the driver and passengers to get in and out in one smooth and flowing process. A pleasant and interesting side effect is that the distance the occupants feel from their surroundings is reduced to a minimum.
The driver and passengers will also enjoy the driving pleasure created by this concept in everyday traffic under regular motoring conditions - simply because the MINI Beachcomber Concept retains its unmistakable character even when adverse weather conditions require use of the soft roof or the lightweight door and roof elements fitting on easily and conveniently within a few instants.
MINI entering new terrain - with a fourth model and a complete range of innovative ideas for the ongoing future.
The MINI Beachcomber Concept symbolizes the elementary values of the brand in new, radical style - and at the same time the new model continues the current development of the MINI range in a particularly attractive manner.
Within just ten years after the re-launch of the brand, the fourth version of the MINI is now set to enter the market. As a unique crossover in the typical style of the brand, the new model offers a fascinating re-interpretation of that typical MINI design, with the functional convenience of four doors, four full-size seats, a variable interior, and a unique standard of driving pleasure now to be enjoyed for the first time also beyond the beaten track thanks to newly developed all-wheel drive.
The new production model now available from MINI goes far beyond the realms of urban mobility, inspiring the MINI designers to enhance that un-mistakable MINI feeling by adding further facets never seen before. Creating the MINI Beachcomber Concept, therefore, they are taking up the technical and concept qualities of the production model announced for autumn 2010, offering the ultimate expression of freedom in a car on this basis. The result is a new, incomparably open concept for a driving experience for all your senses, plus a degree of versatility greater than ever experienced before in discovering and enjoying new terrain.
The potential use and versatility of the MINI Beachcomber Concept is defined exclusively by the activities and preferences of its user. Clearly, the most authentic and natural surroundings for a car of this type are beaches where the MINI Beachcomber Concept, through its enhanced traction and radically open body, offers that unlimited freedom of movement it expresses from the start through its name alone.