German Car Forum

First MINI Now Triumph?

BMW is working on a two-seater based off of the MINI platform that will form the basis of a Triumph concept car later this year and may eventually see production. This seemingly incredible news comes from this morning’s edition of autoindustry.co.uk and is based on information from Autocar’s January 3rd issue. For those that might not be aware, along with BMW’s purchase of Rover back in the mid-90s came a handful of old British brands such as Triumph. At the time it had been rumored that the MINI would be the first of several brands coming back to life. However it was assumed these plans were shelved when Rover was broken up and sold by BMW in 2000. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Reviewing the unconfirmed news that BMW Group design team is working in California on a two-seater sports car derivative of the current MINI platform, Autocar’s 3 January issue speculates that the car, “close to getting the green light for production”, could become a concept vehicle later this year, and eventually, could be marketed under the Triumph brand.

Source: http://motoringfile.com/2006/01/04/f...i-now-triumph/

There is a word BMW is preparing a small roadster. They a
were in dilema what badge to put on: BMW or MINI. Last info were they had voted in favour of MINI: to produce only MINI Roadster, but no BMW Z2.

This Triumph thing is new to me. I do not think Triumph brand is to be revived soon. But we could see a roadster from BMW labeled as "MINI Triumph" in the future.

Miata-killer I suppose... makes sense it not be badged BMW.

Exactly.

Ha, this is unexpected and interesting - I didn't realize BMW kept the Triumph brand - well whatever they do with it, it couldn't be any worse than the old British Leyland Triumphs (POS from hell)

I guess now we can forget all about BMW Z2 roadster.

BMW brand will have 1er/2er Cabrio in the model line.
1er's rear seats are useless anyway, so Cabrio will be de facto a roadster.

I think it should be a triumph. IMO, BMW does not need to head down a path where they have 5 convertibles. Besides, Triumph does have history behind it and if they somehow restyled one that is retro with a modern touch (like the Mini and the Phantom), then I think that that would be a lot more successful than a Z2.

don't know, I'd like an austin Healey