The next new Mini could be built outside the UK, parent group BMW said.
The new car - set to be the biggest Mini ever built - is a Crossover concept that combines a saloon car with four-wheel drive.
The car was unveiled for the first time at the Paris Motor Show on Thursday.
An announcement about production plans will be announced soon, said BMW group sales and marketing director Ian Robertson.
With BMW’s Mini plant at Oxford now running at almost full capacity, there is speculation that the Crossover is likely to be built abroad.
Mr Robertson would not be drawn on where the car will be built, except to say: “It might be somewhere else other than Oxford.”
Nor would Mr Robertson, the first ever British main board director at Munich-based BMW, say whether engines for the Crossover will come from the group’s engine plant at Hams Hall near Birmingham.
The factory produces all BMW’s four-cylinder engines including those for the Mini.
“We don’t know yet where the engines will be sourced,” Mr Robertson said.
He earlier gave an upbeat assessment of Mini’s sales in the current financial crisis. “Mini is the world’s fastest growing premium brand and in the US sales have increased by 25 per cent in the last nine months are up by well over 25 per cent here in France.
“Up to the end of September we had sold 180,000 Mini’s nine per cent more than in 2007.”
Mr Robertson said BMW was planning a series of events to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Mini next year.
