This charm-less 4×4

Oh dear, have you seen pictures of Mini’s new SUV concept? Not exactly pretty is it.

The thing’s going to debut at the Paris Motor Show in a few weeks time which would be bad enough if it was just a concept. But the car is going to make it all the way to production lines, possibly at BMW’s Spartanburg plant in the US, more likely at Steyr in Austria.

Note to Mini from The Insider: be prepared for lots of scared children on your stand.

It looks like the love child of the uber-nasal Citroen C Cactus concept and Porsche’s hideous Cayenne and comes complete with all the nastiness of the Clubman, like pointless trick doors. There’s certainly none of the charm of BMW’s original small car.

But the real horror comes from the concept itself. Why do it?

For years Citroen stuck itsr Gallic noses defiantly in the air while others were targeted by the anti-4×4 league. Yet, even they eventually succumbed to the lure of SUV margins, bringing the world the C-Crosser.

Surely that could never happen to Mini, particularly with a European economy on its backside and SUV sales plummeting in Britain. Why go up to 4×4, when customers are screaming “go down”?

The answer lies not in the UK, or even across mainland Europe. This is an SUV designed for our friends in the US; there’s now enough space inside a Mini for Americans’ cavernous backsides.

Anyway, despite its unconventional looks, isn’t it what’s on the inside that counts. Mini says it is and maybe it’s right.

Who was it that claimed they go site-seeing from the top of the George Pompidou centre because it’s the only place in Paris you can’t see the George Pompidou centre? The same goes for the this unnecessary 4×4…