Having already experienced the MINI Cooper S Clubman in very favourable conditions and on fantastic driving roads, we had high expectations ahead of our week long stint living with a UK spec example of the car, but spending time with the Clubman revealed a great deal more about its character than a short test drive ever could.
This particular UK specification MINI Cooper S Clubman wasn’t overflowing with optional extras, but it still carried the almost essential Chilli Pack and a light sprinkling of other goodies which managed to bump the on the road price from a standard £17,220 to more princely sum of £20,320. This is a world apart from the rusty brown Mini Clubman you may remember your uncle had rusting on his driveway.
We’d pretty much got to grips with the driving dynamics of the MINI Clubman with our earlier experience at the launch in Spain, however living with a car is when you get to learn more about it’s foibles, even if only for a week. We’re a family of four, with one primary age child and one baby, so with this bigger, more practical MINI looking to expand the brand’s appeal to people like us, we felt it would be good to see how the MINI Clubman could cope with replacing our boring but practical Toyota Corolla as a daily driver.
First impressions it has to be said were not great. We struggled initially to get our car seats into the MINI in a way we felt satisfactorily held them in place. But, with a bit of fiddling and a lot of patience we finally got there. It was still far from easy to strap our eldest in to his booster, the standard (in the UK) three seat rear bend has a strange and rather cramped configuration, and the seat belt anchorage had a habit of working its way under the car seat, very frustrating! I’m not sure I’d want to try and sit in the third seat in the rear either, not between two children’s seats any way.
In the front, everything was typical MINI. A nice, comfortable seat, with the upright screen and expanses of glass providing good forward and side visibility. There is, as with the hatchback, plenty of space for the front occupants, the MINI really is incredibly spacious up front for such a small package.
It’s behind the front seats where the Clubman will interest most, the controversial one-sided rear suicide door (which we will from this point forward refer to as the “Clubdoor”, in true MINI-speak) is intended to provide better rear access, and it feels at first like all the extra length of the Clubman has gone into the rear leg space. Visually, there’s not much in it, but it’s much easier to fold a five-year old into a Clubman than a regular MINI, that’s for sure, and the Clubdoor is a boon in terms of your offspring clambering in and out of the car.
The Clubdoor has proved controversial, particularly in the MINIs home market of the UK. The reason? Firstly, its behind the driver, so some have raised concerns of a practical nature, but first and foremost have been the disquiet over the safety aspect of having to empty your loved ones into traffic when parking at the roadside. This is a fair point to a degree, and something you might want to consider if you do park kerbside with any frequency. In our experience though this issue didn’t really raise its head, and we found the additional door nothing but a good thing to have.
Storage space too was improved markedly over the regular MINI. Sure, it wasn’t anything like a small family car, but the gain was obvious and made a genuine practical difference. Buggies, bags of shopping, it went in without a fuss. Sure, you still have to apply a bit of MINI thinking when it comes to packing things in, but there was more than enough room for a weekly shop and a small fold up buggy in the back. The barn doors are a victory of style over substance, they reduce the rear view considerably, and you’d better not back up too close to any obstacles, but they feel sturdy and look great. Just try not to get grubby fingerprints over the rear glass, which is at a more natural “grabbing point” than the sculptured rear handles are.
Driving the Cooper S Clubman around town was a pleasure, MINI have struck a near perfect balance between performance and cruising comfort. The fuel saving stop-start system is perhaps a little unnerving at first, but hard to live without once accustomed to, and the ride while steady and firm is not crashy or harsh, even on the optional 17″ allow wheels, certainly smoother than any first generation MINI.
So, besides the premium over the hatch, the quirky appearance and somewhat controversial Clubdoor placement, there really isn’t anything to grumble about here, it’s a MINI, but with a little bit more.
Tags: bmw, mini, mini clubman, mini cooper s, mini cooper s clubman
Looks like Motoringfile did at the beginning. Nice
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