Magna International on Thursday (30 January, 2014) said its Magna Steyr contract assembly unit in Graz, Austria, had secured a new contract with BMW.
The new deal will start when production of the current Mini Countryman and Paceman ends. According to just-auto‘s Product Life Database (PLDB), this will be in 2016. The more recently introduced (2012) Paceman is the three-door version of the five-door Countryman launched in 2010.
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BMW also started assembling the Countryman for local sale at its plant in India from April 2013. CKD kit assembly at a Malaysian factory, which has for many years built BMWs, got under way the following June. Two months later, SKD assembly was added at a plant in Rayong, Thailand.
just-auto expects the Countryman and Paceman to be replaced by one model, a small crossover that would be more or less the twin of the next BMW X1. Both vehicles would use the group’s UKL1 platform and be built by BMW Group, not outsourced to Magna Steyr. A plug-in hybrid (PHEV) version of the second generation model is also expected, for the US market, at least.
However, Magna did not provide model details, saying only it would provide more information about the contract later.
“This new contract with the BMW Group exemplifies our customer’s confidence in Magna Steyr to deliver world class manufacturing excellence and flexibility,” said Magna Steyr & Magna International Europe president Günther Apfalter in a statement. “We are pleased to secure this contract which allows Magna Steyr to maintain its position as a leader in contract vehicle manufacturing.”
Magna Steyr contracts with BMW date back to a deal to assemble the then-new X3 SUV from 2003 but the automaker now builds the successor model – launched in 2010 – in-house at Spartanburg and, starting in June 2011, from KD kits at its plant in Chennai, India, and, from January 2013, also at the KD plant in Malaysia.
Magna Steyr has built 250,000 Countryman units for BMW since the start of production in 2010.
