Readers want what the industry deemed unprofitable—honest, small-footprint runabouts with actual personality. The Fiat 500, MINI Cooper, and Renault Twingo proved the formula worked; bean counters just decided margins on crossovers looked better on quarterly reports.

BMW posted 388,897 US sales in 2025—a 4.7% bump marking three straight record years. But shipment volume tells you nothing about which models are moving, which are sitting, and where the actual margin is hiding. The real story is in the breakdown by series.