MINI Enters Toughest US Off-Road Rally With A Brand-New Model

MINI USA will make its first appearance in the Rebelle Rally this year, fielding a new model variant driven by Felicia Killman and navigated by BMW Group Mexico communications staffer Erika Ferrer across 1,500 miles of desert terrain. The Rebelle Rally is the longest competitive off-road navigation event in the United States, run without GPS across Nevada, California, and, new for 2026, Utah.

Competitors work off maps, compass, and road book only. MINI has skipped the event until now, but is using it to introduce a new model variant it’s calling more rugged and adventure-oriented than the rest of the lineup. BMW isn’t saying yet what that means mechanically or which existing MINI it’s based on; the full reveal is scheduled for this fall.

Killman, of Lacey, Washington, already races a MINI in American Rally Association stage events and has navigated in past competitions. Ferrer, based in Morelia, spent years managing championship rally teams in Mexico before moving to the co-driver’s seat, where she picked up three straight regional co-driver titles and has ridden alongside Benito Guerra at La Carrera Panamericana. She now works in BMW Group’s Mexico communications team, so this entry doubles as both a competitive run and a marketing assignment for her.

This is BMW Group’s sixth consecutive year in the Rebelle Rally, a streak that started with a Rolls-Royce Cullinan in 2019 and moved through the BMW X2 (2023), X3 (2024), and X5 (2025). Last year’s X5 ran in nearly showroom-stock form, aside from aftermarket tires permitted under the Bone Stock category, and still finished second in the X-Cross all-wheel-drive class while picking up the Bone Stock Award over 1,700 miles. That’s the bar MINI now has to clear with a brand-new variant nobody outside BMW has seen yet.

MINI’s rally credentials go back further than most brands bother to mention: three outright wins at the Monte Carlo Rally in the 1960s with the original Cooper S, plus more recent factory-backed runs at the Dakar Rally. Whether the new variant has anything to do with that heritage beyond marketing copy will become clearer once the car itself is revealed this fall.