Having driven the MINI for over six years, in all it’s derivatives, it was certainly a refreshing change to get behind the wheel of a MINI that is completely new, something very different. The MINI hatchback was and still is brilliant, considered by many a triumph of style, design and image backed by real substance. Once a car like the MINI is a hit, a Convertible surely has to follow, but where to go from there isn’t such an easy choice to make, especially when your name is MINI, when the car has to be small, and has a reputation for great handling and funky design to uphold.

As we all know, MINI went with the Clubman. Parent company BMW have always said that any and every new variant in the MINI range must serve a purpose, must fulfil a demand or niche that the current range doesn’t, must be something truly different, and whatever your views of the MINI Clubman and it’s rather unique configuration from the b-pillars back, it cannot be argued that it is not different. The questions then must be is this bigger ‘estate’, ’shooting brake’, call-it-what-you-will car still a MINI in spirit, and does it genuinely offer the MINI enthusiast something extra, something different to it’s smaller brother?

Our first impression, when greeted with a car park full of MINI Clubman waiting outside Madrid airport was that it certainly looks different. It looks big, yet is actually still remarkably compact, it looks almost like a child’s toy, it looks fun, and it definatley looks quirky. When you’re used to spending hours looking at ‘regular’ MINIs, it looks a little odd. As you walk around the vehicle it doesn’t get any more familiar, it’s asymmetric design and unusual black or silver ‘plastic wrap’ around the rear certainly dispel any feelings of monotony. Reaction at the launch event from the assembled British Media, and early question and answer sessions between MINIs development and management teams rather predictably focused around the ‘wrong sided’ and one sided Club Door. To their credit, the MINI team batted away these questions with great aptitude, the main arguments FOR the single Club Door were that it was something different, something extra. For right hand drive, it was argued, the driver is in complete control of access to the rear of the vehicle as he has to get out, open the front door, to let people out. Apparently some of the German media had complained it was on the wrong side, as drivers would have to walk around the vehicle to let their kids out. According to a MINI representative, two ’suicide doors’ was never really on the cards. They did experiment with and consider a more traditional four door MINI, but when that was ruled out for various reasons, the Club Door idea took to the fore.

Anyway, chances are you’re already well on your way to making your mind up on the appearance of the MINI Clubman, but do the Club Door, extended wheel base, larger boot and barn style rear doors really offer up much in the way of genuine practical uses for the MINI? Is it now a small family car? Could it be considered a compact load lugger? Is it all a terrible mess? We feel the answer to all of those is, in reality, ‘No’. Sure the Clubman offers more rear legroom, but not that much more, not enough that you get a good sense of it being any larger from the rear bench anyway. Rear access is improved by the Club Door, but the application is nowhere near as neat or slick as other ‘hidden hinged’ configurations seen on other cars. In fact, many aspect of the new Clubman felt a little ‘clunky’ in operation.

The boot also presented a bit of a mixed bag. While the Clubman clearly offers greatly improved storage, in practice the 100 litre improvement isn’t earth shattering. The balancing act of keeping the car small, but making the luggage room bigger was clearly a difficult one. The soft load cover is a bit of an oddity and felt flimsy in operation, perhaps a little over complicated, and, unusually you might say for a product from the BMW group, a slightly under engineered. Without a manual to hand, we couldn’t figure out the operation of the ‘false floor’ in the boot, which offers up a level load area when the seats are folded forward, as well as ‘hidden’ storage beneath. The rear barn doors though really are a clever and neat touch. Once you open the right handed door a little the pneumatics do the rest, and the left sided door opens all the way at the touch of a button, very slick, and very much more in keeping with MINI’s image and reputation for quirkiness with quality.

The more time we spent with the Clubman, the more we played with the new toys this MINI variant offers up the more we came to enjoy it. Sure it’s no MINI limo, but during our night drive through the crowded city streets of Madrid our carriage coped amiably with it’s three full sized occupants. It was also during this city escapade we really appreciated the simplistic joy of the stop-start system of our Cooper S Clubman. Many have expressed concerns about this system, how it could feel unpredictable and even possibly unsafe. But it isn’t either, it’s brilliant, slick and once you are used to the car cutting and starting its own engine you really don’t bat an eyelid as the smart electronics do their thing.
As much as the night driving was amusing (to a point, you can only bear to be be stuck in so much traffic, late at night on an empty stomach), for us the MINI Cooper S has always been about the joys of the open roads, and as every Clubman on offer was a Cooper S model, it was excellent of Spain to provide, and BMW to find such excellent roads for us to put the car through its paces on.

Our time was spent largely on twisting, undulating hillside. The views, if you could spare a second to take them in, were suitably sublime, but the best thing we discovered was that in terms of the driving experience, it was excellent. You can’t stick **kg extra weight on a car, put an extra door at the back and one side and not expect a change, but while the Clubman driving experience is different from a hatchback MINI, it’s still got the same feeling, the same sure footed assurance in it’s manners that the MINI has. Extra work and development of the body in white stages of MINI manufacturing (when the car is unpainted steel panels being welded together by clever robots) means that both sides of the Clubman have the same rigidity and torsional strength. When driving the car you’re looking for the difference, you almost expect it to feel a little uneven, maybe quirky driving characteristics to match the styling, but the Clubman is spot on.

For the duration of our drives we drove a MINI Cooper S Clubman, they did not feature the sport button, or Sports suspension, but did include DSC and the optional Limited Slip Differential. We threw the Clubman through many a tight twist and turn, incredibly fun roads, and taxing on any car, but the Clubman just ate it all up. There is understeer present at the limits, and it can feel a little squirmy when on the edge, but there’s nothing here you could pin on the car being too long or too rear heavy. The weight distribution seems to lend itself a little to a more balanced feel to the Clubman, the rear doesn’t feel heavy, nothing feels odd.

All is not rosy in the garden though. The rear ‘parcel shelf’ really is a bit of a cock up, and if you thought the rear view in the MINI Convertible could be bad, then the Clubman is little short of shocking. No point making any hand gestures at the car behind you, they ain’t gonna see it. That said, if they’re on a motorbike, or may not see them anyway. Our co-driver commented on finding himself trying to shake of a phantom biker, when actually it was just the join line at the back. But what can you do, if you have barn doors you have to have a join, and where there’s a join, there going to be a lack of glass. The operation of the rear doors, to us at least, justifies this inconvenience, but we didn’t really have to park the thing, if we did, our views may have changed.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. Your view on the Clubman overall is probably going to be decided by your attitude. Is the glass half empty, or is it half full? If it’s half empty the Clubman could easily be dismissed as comedy of errors, a freak of a car, a half hearted half baked attempt at a bigger MINI that’s all style and very little real substance. Or, you could take the glass half full approach. The Clubman is still every bit a MINI, when you’re driving around most of the time, until you check the rear view MINI, you’re in a MINI, no different from any other. When you want some fun, you can throw it about and have a good time every bit as much as you can with the hatch, but if you want a little extra space in the rear, an extra door to help people get in and out, and almost double the boot space, then it’s all there for you, and for a relatively small price premium.

The MINI Clubman will, we’re sure, win people over. It will help those lusting after a MINI to justify the purchase to themselves (or their partners) that little bit more easily, it could also appeal to those who thought the 2nd generation was a little too ’same again’ and lacked originality. MINI aims to achieve a new customer rate of around 80% with the Clubman, we’re not sure how realistic that is, this car could be as much about retaining enthusiasts as it will be winning new people over. Clubman production is expected to account for 25% of all MINIs, and the Cooper is expected to lead the way in terms of sales volume. Time will tell if they have got their predictions right, but one thing seems certain, despite it’s detractors, the MINI Clubman will be a hit, and we thing deservedly so.

And what about the future? Nobody was saying very much, we did have a good conversation with Detler Welters, Head of Product Marketing over dinner about the future direction of MINI, and the Clubman in particular, but really very little was revealed. The Cooper Diesel is undergoing continual development, and will have improved sound deadening in the firewall and other areas as a response to feedback from customers complaining it was too noisy while for the Clubman we can expect “roof rails” as an option in 2008, and seeing a panel van concept at motor shows soon is also apparently on the cards. Although the panel van will “definitely not” be something brought into production!

Probing questions were being thrown about concerning the possibility of a 4×4, or “bigger MINI”, “MINI SUV”, but as you can expect at official events very little was given away, and most was dismissed out of hand as simply not happening. The strongest rebuttal came when the rumours of MINI teaming up with Mercedes for the next generation platform were mentioned. And if you’re considering holding out for a Clubman with a matching pair of rear doors, I wouldn’t hold your breath. The platform apparently just isn’t flexible enough to make the required production changes affordable. “Maybe in the next generation” this could be considered, when BMW will rebuild the MINI platform once again from the ground up.

We’ll be the first to admit we were highly sceptical about the MINI Clubman, especially some of the design decisions which MINI brand Vice President Dr Kay Segler describes as “extrovert”, and we have to disagree with Kay when he calls the additional rear leg room “sensational”. But with that all said, for a little extra money you get a little extra MINI, and that surely can only be a good thing. The Clubman has a unique character and style, and many quirks that will both enthuse and annoy people, but we’ve been sold, we think it’s a winner.