Its makes no odds.......its smaller than a Focus and barely bigger than a Corsa (the figures are correct) so it feels like a smaller car to drive, it might
feel bigger inside but, that has nothing to do with road presence.....Focus has much better head room than the 25 (its main failing if you had a sun roof was head room) and I can throw a Focus round a lot better than a 25 (the Focus chassis has much less flex).....plus I have tried (we used to get them as rental cars
).
BMW must have been pulling their hair out.....they had two main cars, the 25 and 45, which couldn't compete as cheap cars in the next class up (to small and basic) and were to expensive to compete in the next class down.......market share starts to fall away and your doomed, particularly if you are staring at a total re-design (mega bucks) to get back into a market which you now have a bad name in.
So, bin the name and under performing plant and produce the Mini and 1 series under your own name......makes perfect business sense (don tell the guys in Longbridge though....)