Mini used final week’s 2023 Munich auto present to unveil a third-generation Countryman measuring 5.1 inches longer than its predecessor, making it the largest Mini but. Nonetheless, the model identified for its small automobiles could also be planning to go even greater.

Talking with Wheels on the launch of the brand new Countryman, which is predicted to achieve the U.S. subsequent yr as a 2025 mannequin, Mini chief Stefanie Wurst hinted {that a} compact van with greater than 5 seats was potential and pointed to 2020’s Imaginative and prescient Urbanaut idea.

“Urbanaut is unquestionably an attention-grabbing idea,” she mentioned. “Urbanaut wasn’t very particular on seat capability nevertheless it had a lounge space so as an alternative of doing that you could possibly additionally think about a much bigger seating capability.”

It is not the primary time Mini has hinted at a automobile greater than the Countryman. The automaker in 2020 mentioned it was engaged on an SUV bigger than the Countryman, although Wurst in her interview with Wheels mentioned she’d moderately introduce a brand new sort of car idea than merely going up in measurement.

Stefanie Wurst

“I personally assume we’ve reached an excellent measurement, but I feel once we launch a bigger Mini or an prolonged Countryman, I don’t know if that is nonetheless a Mini,” she mentioned. “I might moderately go on a brand new revolutionary idea that’s extra sudden and stunning as a result of Mini is about doing issues a distinct manner.”

Rumors of a Mini minivan date again a number of years, with the Traveller identify usually linked to these rumors. The unique Mini Traveller, or Morris Mini-Minor Traveller formally, was a smallish van that in some generations got here with bolted-on wooden physique components, and Mini could persist with the standard identify simply because it did with the Clubman and Countryman names that have been each borrowed from the unique Austin-Morris lineup.

Whereas a Mini minivan could also be years away nonetheless, Wurst hinted that Mini could introduce extra Countryman variants to assist fill the void left by the Clubman which bows out after 2024. The automaker will even launch the Aceman subsequent yr, an electrical crossover smaller than the Countryman.