Mini is poised to further rock the establishment by revealing a five-door Mini 4x4, labelled Sports Activity Vehicle and which could spawn a mainstream front-wheel-drive hatchback variant, at the Paris Motor Show in October. The newcomer is expected to appear in showrooms in 2010. It's expected the new car will feature a new, taller, five-door body. However, in order to make the new ‘SAV’ financially viable, Mini plans to build a two-wheel-drive model on the same chassis, creating a five-door hatchback.

While Mini continues to re-write the sales record books, the successful launch of the SAV would take annual Mini brand sales up to the 340,000 mark. But with industry specialists suggesting Mini probably needs to make 500,000 cars per year if it is to be profitable - and its research and development programmes are to become self-funding - insiders say that if the Mini SAV proves a success, the two-wheel-drive ‘Mini Maxi’ hatch could be launched by 2012. Despite the fact BMW engineers “devised the SAV vehicle concept”, it's been confirmed by BMW that "series development and production” will be handled by Austrian company Magna Steyr. The German manufacturer has also confirmed it has completed “the majority of the drivetrain development” for the Mini SAV.

With prices expected to start around £16,000, the new SAV - of which around 80,000 will be built each year at Magna's factory in Graz - is expected to get a similar range of petrol and diesel engines to the current Mini range