Next generation MINI Countryman to arrive in 2016

It looks like the next generation MINI Countryman will arrive in 2016 after MINI announced its contract with Magna Steyr will end then.

We’ve recently had the arrival of the all new MINI, and the next year or so will see the roll-out of a succession of takes on the new MINI.

But that process of building a MINI for every possible niche won’t complete until the MINI Countryman (and its coupe sibling, the MINI Paceman) are replaced.

That now looks likely to happen in 2016 as, according to Automotive News, BMW is to end production of the MINI Countryman and Paceman at Magna Steyr in Austria in 2016 and move production of the Countryman and Paceman to Oxford and the new MINI Plant in the Netherlands.

There seems no likelihood that BMW would tool up the two plants to produce the current Countryman, so it looks like we can expect the all new Countryman and Paceman to arrive in 2016.

When the new Countryman does arrive it looks like it will grow to be even less MINI-like in size as MINI attempt to make the Countryman roomier, more appealing and more able to compete with more mainstream compact SUVs.

But despite BMW ending production of the Countryman at Magna Steyr it seems they will still be using them as an overspill facility to build BMWs in big demand, with a contract that is likely to cover 100,000 cars a year over the following six to seven years.

Related Photos: 2014 MINI

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