We all know Mini. They're the brand that makes an excellent hot hatch, but also has a line-up consisting of a mini-SUV (because you loved your old Cooper but had kids), a mini-coupe (if you decided rear seats and/or practicality weren't your thing), a mini-roadster (when you've already made a coupe out of your hot hatch, it's not that hard to chop the top off and call it a roadster), a stretched-hatchback with a third door on the passenger side (which doesn't work in places where cars are RHD, meaning the third door feature is useless in the United Kingdom, where it's made), and a two-door mini-SUV (that one's totally pointless).
Other than offering many different variations on the "premium" hot-hatchback theme, Mini also offers many different accessories. Nowhere is this more true than on the car configurator on the MINIUSA website, where you can actually double the price of the car if you choose enough dealer-installed accessories, never mind the high-priced factory options list (and the extra $200 for white rear lamps).
But key to Mini's "character" was the fact you could customize the roof decal with a Union Jack, a helicopter landing pad decal, a checkered flag, or even the American flag. So clearly, Mini would attempt to make as much money as it possibly could on trying to appeal to people's sense of nationalism, even though they were driving a car made in a British factory owned by a German company. With an MSRP of $180 not including labor, only Mini and its dealers would be happy to promote the new customization options.
This press release was published in November 2002, after a year where Mini had made an immense impact on the US market, where no one thought it would sell as well as it had. After all, it was small, yet had a relatively high price. In the press release, they detailed the availability of three new flags that could be put on the roof. They were: the Canadian flag, the Scottish Cross of St. Andrew, and the English Cross of St. George.
Despite all the effort of making different roof schemes available, Mini has never offered an Indian flag option on the Cooper roof, making their owners use aftermarket solutions, or commissioning a decal themselves. With over a billion Indians, you'd think Mini would eventually have made one available. And that's the only reason I wrote about a press release on such an obscure topic.
Press release can be found here.