Following the recent move to locally assemble the Mini Countryman in Malaysia, the BMW-owned brand has started CKD operations in Thailand, with first units hitting showrooms this month. Like here, the first Mini chosen to be locally assembled in the Land of Smiles is the five-door Countryman variant, Bangkok Post reports. Knocked down packs will come from Graz, Austria.
The model choice was an easy one to make – last year, the company sold 500 Minis in Thailand, half of which was the Countryman. Three variants will roll out of BMW’s flexible assembly facility in Rayong, the 122 hp/160 Nm petrol Cooper, the 112 hp/270 Nm diesel Cooper D and the more powerful 143 hp/305 Nm Cooper SD. All will come with six-speed autos, but only the Cooper SD will get ALL4 all-wheel drive.
Official pricing is not out yet, but the daily speculates that the Thai-assembled Countryman range will start from below two million baht (RM207k). As a CBU import, the Countryman is priced between 2.5 and 3.2 million baht (RM258k to RM331k) in Thailand.
The CKD Countryman was launched in Malaysia in June. We get the Cooper and Cooper S ALL4, priced at RM218,888 and RM258,888 respectively. When it was launched here in March 2011, the Cooper was priced at RM248,888 and the Cooper S RM285,888. Full story here, review of the C’man here.
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Sigh.. why are we losing all the good stuff to the Thais
u oredy got perodua plant in rawang..priced cheaper,but specs down a bit laa..haha..
Because we have a brilliant NAP. Real culprit is mismanagement by an incompetent Government where it claims it has majority vote. So majority is ok to this trend and we are the odd one that find this a problem. You and I should accept this fact and move on.
This is nothing,
We have NAP… Nobody can challenge our NAP…
NAP.. NAp.. Nap.. nap.. ZZZ.. ZZz.. Zzz.. zzz..
some ppl are stupid enuff cant see that Mini here in Malaysia is cheaper than Thai..
Yeah compare Baht 2,000,000 vs RM 220,000. Only dumb people like you will compare that way.
Our Countryman CKD is RM219k, Thai CKD is about RM207k.
Of coz thai will be cheaper since bmw-mini avoid 80% import tax by thai gov…against bolehland 30% import tax…but thai has cheaper excise tax if not mistaken bet 20-50% n boleh bet 65-105%(efective rate 30-60%)
BAR FINE?
:-)
Fantastic to see Our neighbours are getting more prosperous and They still come to rip our wealth…. So mana foreigners nowadays..
Guys, i am not a supporter of current government policies, but i think mini has already been assemblying mini’s in Malaysia …… Read the first line of the article again.