MINI has the highest manual take rate percentage of any auto brand that is not strictly a sports car manufacturer. According to
MarketingDaily:
Thomas Salkowsky, manager of Mini brand marketing, says that in spite of an increasingly clutch-free world, about 34% of buyers of the Clubman, the Mini Cooper convertible and the hard top buy the manual version, and that even for the AWD version of the Countryman, Mini's answer for a crossover, the manual take rate is about 30%. In New England, according to Salkowsky, it's a 50/50 split between auto and manual, and even in highway-bound L.A. it's about 15%. That's a huge percentage, given the national average. AOL Auto's editor, Kirk Seaman, wrote last year that back in 1985 22.4% of all vehicles sold in the U.S. came with a manual transmission. By 2007, it was 7.7%. AOL Autos says last year it was about 5.5%.
To capitalize on this lead in manual transmission sales MINI has recently launched a new marketing campaign - "Manualhood." The campaign touts rowing your own gears complete with car stickers that tell passers-by that the vehicle has a stick. There will also be posters and car toppers; a "Manualhood" Motoring Manual; a phone number, 855-Manual-Up (as in "man up") with a humorous message about what it means to be in the 'hood; and MINI dealerships will have a manual-shift car set aside for test drives with "Manual Up" signage.
