Our Countryman is still a brand new experience so we’re discovering loads on every journey.
Its sheer size, for example, is confusing. The other night I came home late to my London street and although there were two decent-sized parking spaces left, I wasn’t confident of fitting easily into either of them – something you’d expect to do in a car traditionally associated with being a city vehicle and more recently a nimble supermini. The Countryman might look like the latter but it’s so much bigger, as our photo of a chance encounter with its smaller sibling shows. Maybe if the proportions were more significantly enlarged in one direction – rather than pumped up almost equally in length, height and width – its shape wouldn’t play as many visual tricks.
On the subject of parking, the Countryman has an aircraft-style manual parking brake with a horizontal handle like on old Vauxhall Zafiras and Renault Meganes. Stylish it may be, but it’s awkward within the confines of this car – the armrest needs to be up to perform the task easily – and seems to require more effort than normal handbrakes. Indeed, I noticed online aftermarket kits are available for such brakes to add leverage. Surely a sign of form over function?
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