All About Japan Autos

Future Products Models

BMW and its subsidiary, MINI, are betting that credit woes and high as prices won’t push car buyers out of SUVs. They’ll just push them into smaller ones. Much smaller ones.

On Friday, BMW unveiled its compact crossover, the X1. Based on the 1-Series platform, the X1 is highly reminiscent of BMWs X3. Jalopnik says, “It looks a little more robust in person than when we saw leaked press shots earlier in the week, but it’s still hard to get excited about another crossover, particularly one that looks, and is bound to drive, like the underwhelming X3 we already have, only with less room.”

We can expect to see the X1 in showrooms in mid 2009…if we see it at all. Edmunds Inside Line reports, “There are serious doubts over whether it will be sold in North America because of the continued strength of the single European currency against the weakened U.S. dollar,” which cuts into the profit automakers take from vehicles they build in Europe and ship here. BMW says the X1 can be powered by “a 170-horsepower 2.0-liter four-cylinder gasoline and 177-hp 2.0-liter four-cylinder common-rail diesel, as well as a 265-hp 3.0-liter six-cylinder gasoline engine and the company’s new 245-hp 3.0-liter six-cylinder diesel.” No pricing details have been announced.

BMW’s MINI division has SUV in Paris. This one is officially in concept form, but every MINI concept we’ve been shown in the past has eventually reached production, so we’re probably looking at a future showroom product.

Dubbed simple the MINI Crossover Concept, this little SUV is “slightly longer and wider than the Clubman and rides higher than any other Mini product,” according to Motor Trend. The vehicle features a unique door arrangement, which conventional doors in the front, a conventional rear door on one side, and a minivan-like sliding rear door on the other. Its rear hatch opens sideways.

If you’re not confused yet, we’ll point out that you can also lower the glass in the rear hatch.

The Car Connection says “we see the traditional MINI funkiness, but hiked up on platforms shoes, stretched, and with a pretty fly 1.5 doors on the driver’s side and a full two on the passenger’s.”

But its most unusual feature is its driver interface — a sphere-shaped object about the size of a bowling ball in the center of the console, which MINI calls the Center Globe. According to Motor Trend, “It will be controlled by buttons and sliding switches on the lower part of the Globe, as well as a keyboard that extends out of the dash for the passenger. The driver will also have control of the interface via a trackball on the steering wheel.”

The Car Connection says it looks like something out of “War of the Worlds.”

We say it looks like something that won’t be part of the production model. But maybe we just haven’t recovered from iDrive.

Research the best small SUVs with U.S. News’ car rankings and reviews.