New designer Holger Hampf is shaping Mini’s future
New designer is “almost finished” with a range of significant facelifts that will kick off design refresh
Mini has “almost finished” work on a range of significant facelifts that will herald a new era for the brand under design chief Holger Hampf.
The German joined Mini from Designworks, BMW’s Californian design consultancy, in October 2024 but has yet to have an opportunity to make his mark, given how new the British marque’s range is (the Cooper hatchback and Countryman SUV arrived in 2023 and the Aceman crossover a year later).
In his first meeting with UK media, Hampf told Autocar that “you will see my work in an upcoming LCI” – ‘life cycle impulse’ being the BMW Group’s term for a major model update.
Hampf said this will be an “important milestone” for the Mini brand, steered by “customer feedback from this generation”.
Given the line-up is still relatively fresh, it’s likely that a restyled Cooper and Countryman will arrive late next year and a refreshed Aceman in 2028.
To this end, Hampf also hinted that Mini is working on an off-road-focused variant of one of its existing models, saying: “We’ve witnessed the trend of the outdoor lifestyle and driving out of the city to spend some days in nature. Can our car do this? Certainly, so expect something in that direction.”
This would most likely be based on the Countryman, given that it’s the only Mini currently available with four-wheel drive and its raised ride height would lend itself naturally to such a “lifestyle” vehicle.
While Hampf’s initial focus will be on facelifts, he did confirm that work has also begun on the next entirely new generation of Minis, which are expected to arrive in the early 2030s.
What defines Hampf’s Mini?
Of the Mini brand’s many design signatures, Hampf highlighted proportion as the most important, saying: “You can ask a Brit or a German or an Italian – you can ask a five-year-old – and they will recognise a Mini based on the proportions of the car, especially when it comes to the Cooper.”
To that end, Hampf committed to the future of the three-door variant, despite all rivals having abandoned this format, saying: “The three-door hatch will always be our anchor and it will always be the product that we will care for as much as possible.
“You’ve seen some experimentation with the Countryman’s size, and even the Cooper has grown in size, but that’s not necessarily a design decision: it’s based on regulations, pedestrian safety, sensor technology and the customer’s desire to have [ADAS] functionality in their cars.”
Can Mini go smaller?
“Mini has the largest portfolio in its history,” said Hampf, pointing to the three-door and five-door Coopers, three-door Convertible, Countryman and Aceman. “That’s good for now. However, you see we’ve always explored how to branch out from the Cooper and offer more.”
Hampf has gone through Mini’s back catalogue of concept cars to inform any new opportunities, and he said he “loves things like the Urbanaut [MPV] and Rocketman [city car]”, while the Superleggera [roadster] was “super-nice”.
Nonetheless, “there has to be a business proposition” for any new model that Mini does decide to build, and Hampf asked of the Superleggera: “Is it only for fun?”
As for the Rocketman, the 2011 vision of a Mini closer in size to the 1959 original, Hampf said: “The size discussion about Mini – growing smaller or bigger and so on – we have every day.
“You have to see what’s happening in the world: as long as people prefer to buy bigger cars than smaller cars, it can be dangerous for a business to say ‘we’ve watched the micro-mobility market and there are certainly cities like Paris, Madrid or Milan where this works really well’.
“Quite frankly, I’m 1.9m [6ft 2in] tall. Maybe this is my personal opinion, but a Mini was always good for going out to the market in the morning, driving your kids to school and going to the opera in the evening. Try to do that with some of these concepts.”
Hampf added: “I can’t do things that aren’t cool. I’m not saying that going smaller is not a possibility, but it has to fit into today’s lifestyle as well.”
Hotter JCW cars coming
John Cooper Works, Mini’s high-performance sub-brand, is expected to adopt more distinctive styling to further set its cars apart from regular models. Hampf said there is “air to the top” of the JCW range and drew a parallel with the differentiation between BMW’s M Competition and M performance cars, suggesting that a more extreme take on the Cooper-based JCW hot hatch is in the works.
This won’t be another track-focused GP model, however, suggested Hampf: “We’ve done something right in not only thinking of the GP, which we’ve done in the past.”
Hampf pointed to Mini’s recent collaboration with fashion brand Deus Ex Machina as “one experiment” regarding the evolution of JCW, with “bigger tyres and bigger spoilers”. It is possible that, given “such positive response” from the public, toned-down versions of the two Deus Ex Machina concept cars (named The Skeg and The Machina) are being primed for production.
A record 25,630 JCW cars were sold last year, an increase of 59.5% compared with 2024. Mini pointed to the UK, Japan and Australia as instrumental markets. Mini CEO Jean-Philippe Parain recently told Autocar that there are “still some possibilities” to expand the JCW offering, saying that it would push the hot hatches “very strongly”.
