Quote:
Originally Posted by Arragonis
You are correct - I sit (slouch) corrected, 5 million is worldwide for the old Mini which for some reason (probably too many biscuits) I had mixed up with the Beetle figures. Still not an overwhelming number compared to total car population of the US.
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True, but it's still a big niche. As you point out, it really was VW's main model (plus the van and Karman-Ghia), and few other single models sold nearly as well.
Also remember that in the '70s, as VW's US sales declined, that small car niche that the Beetle created was being filled by the likes of Honda, Toyota, Datsun (now Nissan), and Subaru. If you consider their current total sales as a fraction of the US market, niche somehow doesn't seem the right word :-)