NEW YORK, NY: The fact that Toronto might not be hip enough to get a Mini franchise gives you some idea of how different BMW's strategy for marketing this new line of small cars will be.
During the reveal here of the first of several models to arrive in the next decade wearing the Mini name, BMW Canada PR boss Tobias Nickel put forward the proposition that Hogtown might not make the cut for the three or four dealerships that will sell the car in Canada.
Nickel sees Vancouver and Montreal as ideal spots for the hip urban attitudes that Mini will appeal to, with Quebec City maybe third because Quebecers tend to be more receptive to trendy things. Which kind of puts Toronto on the bubble for a spot.
Rob van Shaik, the Canadian who will design the marketing of the cars in this country, takes in these comments from his German-born colleague with what kindly could be called a baleful eye.
Van Shaik seems a little more certain that Toronto will make the cut, since he knows there are volume and money realities there that need to be addressed if BMW Canada is to meet its conservative projections for Mini Cooper sales, which is about 1,000 cars a year.
Whichever cities it is that actually sell Mini Cooper when it goes on sale in March of 2002 (yes, 2002), it will still leave much of the country unserviced because it is not hip enough to understand or support the marketing vision behind the car.
Sure, the BMW executives from Whitby would deny, deny, deny that it'll be a case of insufficient hipness if there's no Mini store in a certain, but that's the hard nut of their plans.