Gadgetory

this is the new MINI Clubman it's the mini for people who like minis but need something a little more grown-up something with space that looks a bit sharper to reflect who they are and what they do now it's like a cheeky chappie mini but not quite as in-your-face growing up is something I've been thinking a lot about recently at what point do you stop pretending to be a grown-up and actually become one when do you stop thinking about cartoons and what have you and start thinking seriously about things like the future you'll never enjoy sorting your taxes and bills and what-have-you you'll never want to look at pension schemes and getting clever with your money but you will have to there comes a point where spending a night throwing cheap booze down your neck gives way to getting an early evening and trying out a new recipe you've found online you start thinking about having a bigger life a family a home all that kind of stuff and you wonder whether you spent too much time doing things because they're fun rather than doing things because you should my mild existential crisis does have a point fear not the vanilla mini is a wonderful car it's small ace to look at and good fun but it doesn't exactly scream on the grown-up nor does it have much space so when you need to make some room for say miniature humans it'll have to go before if you wanted big space from a mini you had to go for a countryman and that was well a little challenging for some or you could try the last generation Clubman which was great but it wasn't especially good in the UK because we only had the barn doors and the big boost at the back the club door on the side to give access for rear passengers opened directly into traffic so not ideal for letting the kids out as they're getting into school but both of them summed up mini and Mini ownership perfectly they were cool they were funky they were good to drive and good to look at but they weren't very grown-up something this the new Clubman hopes to remedy it has four proper doors down the sides and two at the rear to access it's rather impressive boot space you do need some space behind you to open them though but still it's a neat design touch that makes it stand out there is a downside to all those doors though its massive over 14 feet long which makes it I think one of the biggest cars ever made now actually one of the biggest things the planet has ever seen as this handy graph will now demonstrate however all that extra space and length means you can fit an enormous amount of crap in the back and the cool doors at the back the barn doors give you access to the boot open on the key which is very cool but it does come with a couple of downsides one they have to be open enclosed in a specific order which can catch you out occasionally and two they add even more length to the car so you need to park quite far forward to be able to open them so whatever you do don't reverse it into a space it's no great shakes but something to bear in mind speaking of the inside it's like seeing a parent in their work gear familiar yet different all the details are here but they're a bit less mini ish and all BMW personally I miss the vents and switch gear that mirrors the mini wings but I can see why some wouldn't mind their absence looks and size and what-have-you aside this is the MINI Clubman Cooper s it's got a 2-liter four-cylinder turbocharged engine with 189 brake horsepower and over 200 pound foot of torque naught to 60 2 takes 7.2 seconds and it's top speed is over 140 miles an hour now yes I've said it's a bit bigger than a hatch but it's also supposed to be that little bit more grown-up so the question is is it Drive wise it does feel like a bonafide a mini which means it's quite fun it's quite peppy it steers really nicely you know you do know where the wheels are and the wheels are as they are on every Mini at each corner so you can feel where it is on the road you do feel it's extra length you really do and you do have to kind of reach Eunice because in a normal minute you just kind of put it anywhere you want to and no the cars gonna get in the gap with this you can't do that and you have to really get to know the car you have to look extra long extra hard just to make sure that you're not going to clip anything or anyone say changing lanes or anything like that Mini's fiddled with the color palettes for this as well so you can have the bright colors like you can on the hatch of also more somber ones it's like this and the burgundy you see in the ads personally I'd quite like to see it in a brighter here I think the gray makes it look a bit like a giant chunk of granite throttle response is again it's a little bit sluggish from time to time but once you get used to it it's pretty good the brakes on this Cooper s do feel pretty solid they stop the car when you need them to now this has a new 8-speed gearbox some people really like it personally I'm not getting on with it all that much and I don't know why I can't quite put my finger on it because sometimes it's brilliant and sometimes it's just a little bit slow a little bit sluggish and you want it to choose from one of its many ratios and just stick to it now this being the Cooper S it is the quick one for now until the inevitable John Cooper Works comes out with many many horsepower and it can feel quite brisk you can see the speedo gathering numbers but inside it's not that exciting you don't feel that push back and that's a little bit annoying I tried to Cooper D a while ago and that did feel just a little bit peppy I think it's the talk this is it's a wonderfully linear power train even with its turbo on it there's no turbo lag or anything like that but you just don't get an enormous sensation of speed you can fling it into corners and it's good fun at some quite interesting speeds if you're feeling brave but it just doesn't excite you as say a normal hatch cover S word or even the Cooper works but the Cooper Works sole job is pretty much to be exciting the interior is great and it does feel more grown-up than the traditional mini of this kind of generation but just I miss the fun I miss the fun of it the outside can be more businesslike that's cool but I miss the the witness of it all the way you said it the way it used to echo the mini wings I love that and it's kind of a shame that it's not really here anymore at least not as obviously there's also a problem with rear visibility because it's got that barn door thing which is awesome I really like it it's white the fact it adds an extra million feet to the back of the car and you can traverse it into a bay and go shopping it is great but in order to make it oh no crash proof I imagine there's a big center bar down the middle and it's do you get two tiny little letter boxes to look through and the wipers can only be so big so when it's raining and horrible you just get this tiny little bit on either side of the windscreen at the rear and that's about it in the dark not ideal it does feel like a mini there's definitely ninis in it but it is growing up because at the turn of the century when mini was launched it was the fun brand from BMW everything was all circles and Happiness and loveliness really it was an exciting little car it was a gateway car into BMWs now though mini wants to do that job as well when you trade in your hatch you can also get an SUV thing or you can get a family estate it wants to be seen as something that's still fun still has that edge of our Sonic let's go out for a Sunday morning drive and drive like a lunatic but also if you want take it to a meeting or you want to take it to see the vicar or your mother you don't have to go or what's that because it's really big and daily and fun and silly it's it's more sensible people can change they can change their look they can change their outlook on the world but deep down you're always gonna have that little flair of fun that little flicker of who you once were that kid you used to be that wants to do everything and go out on a drinking binge all weekend that's kind of what this is so it feels like a bigger slightly less perky mini that's not a huge surprise it's longer wider and all that but it's still quite fun but why has mini made the Clubman and why can I hear a few people going oh it's not so many anymore is it why the Clubman that's actually pretty easy you see there are people who years ago brought a mini hatch and absolutely loved it it fitted into their life perfectly but as time has gone on they've needed something bigger to put said life in there currently you can get a countryman not for everybody or the five-door hatch which might be a little bit too small so this still has the driving dynamics but it's a bit bigger and a bit more grown-up and it keeps people in the mini ecosystem which of course Minnie wants the mini not being small thing I'm kind of sick of making this point but here goes again for some people the mini is a cool brand based around a car that their parents and grandparents drove for them it's not a cheap easy micro car but an aspirational car a step above what else is on the market the camera may seem like a large step for many but when you think about the logical progression of things it makes sense it's the car you buy when you want something with the charm of the hatch but it's a little bit more businesslike it's a grown-up car for grownups who still want to play a little bit you