We have seen that some production-ready prototypes of the Mini Cabrio released last year in July and some faintly camouflaged models showed early in 2006, however BMW has postponed the launch of the supreme second generation Mini series because of the continued sky-scraping sales of the older models.

Dutch magazine Autotelegraaf said that the production of the current first generation cars will end this year in July and BMW will leave a nice space to build up anticipations as well as pre-orders for new generation MINI Cabrio. Production should start March 2009 if the rumors are true.

The new Mini Cabrio will feature the same soft-top with multi-functional features which will open the upper part in order to give that feeling of sun roof plus the usual fully-folded solution, that we’ve been used with on Mini One, Cooper and Cooper S.

In 2010 Mini decided it still was not large enough and it came out with the Countryman.  The New Countryman dwarfs the original version and has a closer resemblance to an American SUV. It is four inches taller and more than 430 lbs heavier. With the new larger size it was fitted with two extra doors to better fit the larger Americans. When will the Mini stop becoming larger? What will be big enough?  It is just another reason to support that theory that everyone and everything gains weight in America.

Recently there has been a lot of speculation as to whether the next new MINI Cooper would be focused around fuel economy and building a greener MINI or maybe some sort of SUV. Within the fuel economy hopefuls there were basically two camps, the diesel camp and the hybrid camp. BMW, MINIs parent company has fuel efficient diesels on the shelf and plans for hybrid gas/electric BMWs have already been announced so a greener MINI had to be just around the corner. Well MINI showed their hand this morning with the announcement of a 100% electric plug-in MINI named the MINI E where the E stands for electric.

The BMW Group isn’t fooling around with its Electric MINI project that will see up to 500 drivers in the U.S. states of Southern California, New York City and New Jersey getting the chance to obtain the plug-in MINI E for a year through leasing. Right after the release of the first pics and details of the MINI E (click here to read our article), the British firm launched a dedicated site were those interested can sign up for more info on the application process. We signed-up and received an e-mail saying that MINI will keep us updated.