It’s unmistakably still a Mini, but with its distinctive, two-tone styling and door layout – no other car offers a single ‘suicide’ rear door on one side only plus a pair of van-style rear doors for boot access – the dramatic new Clubman will certainly turn heads.
Mini reckons up to a quarter of its sales will be the Clubman, which joins the hatchback and convertible in a three-model range and carries a premium of around £1200 over the three-door version.
The new model is 240mm longer than the hatch, eight of which is in the wheelbase for more rear passenger room, with the rest behind the rear wheels to create a boot area that, at 260 litres, is 100 larger than the hatchback.
But if anything the Clubman creates an illusion of practicality. The rear seats are cramped compared to potential rivals such as the Peugeot 207 SW, while the boot space is only adequate when compared to the hatchback’s tiny offering. Both are easily accessed, however: the rear seats through the sole double door on the right-hand side (the wrong side for the UK, but engineering and financial reasons don’t permit a switch); the boot courtesy of a hinging mounted as far out as possible to give the doors a wide opening – though you’ll have to be aware that they need more space than a conventional tailgate, and they heavily compromise rear visibility, thanks to the central pillars combining with small rear windows.
The only model available to test at the launch was the range-topping Cooper S, though there will also be more affordable Copper and Cooper D variants.
Performance almost matches the three-door versions, and the 175PS 1.6 engine provides all the power and performance a driver could want. The Clubman is still plenty of fun on the right roads, too, with Mini’s claims of go-kart like handling pretty much ringing true, even if it feels a tiny bit less nimble thanks to the additional length and weight.
The Clubman Cooper S is a tricky car to pick rivals for because the obvious supermini estates such as the 207 SW and Skoda Fabia Estate don’t offer the performance variants. At this price and power we’ve chosen to put it up against the best hot hatches in the market, and though Topcalc is yet to finalise whole life costs, expect them to be exceedingly competitive with the class best thanks to Mini’s historically unmatched residual values. The green technology such as stop-start filtering over from BMW also contributes to an impressive 150g/km and 44.8 average mpg for such a quick car. The Cooper only emits 132g/km, and the diesel an even more impressive 109g/km.
The Clubman is likely to cause a similar stir to that witnessed by the first BMW Mini in 2001, and despite several compromises and slight flaws – such as a lack of practicality and a lack of generosity with the car’s spec – it’s an exciting new model that will more than makes up for that in terms of image and driving dynamics.
