From 4, to 5, to 6 doors
Just a little while and then the Mini Clubman will be a thing of the past. The second modern generation will call it a day in the summer and this will put an end to a total of three generations of the Mini with back doors for the time being. There is as yet no question of a successor, and it could just be that there will not be one either. That is why this weekend we look back at the car that first had four, then five and then six doors.
It may be unknown to our younger readers, but there was also a longer version of the classic Mini. It is a bit too simplistic to speak of one previous appearance, because the classic ‘Clubman’ came in several forms. We put Clubman in quotes, because although we mainly remember the station version as such due to the arrival of modern iterations with the same name, the name was not only reserved for the longer Minis in the 1970s.
Although, in a sense yes. At the time, the Clubman name adorned the Minis with a nose that was 11 centimeters longer than that of the original Mini. That nose provided a larger crumple zone, more room to tinker and a more ‘seventies’ appearance. It was also the nose that was on the majority of the ‘Estate versions’ of the Mini, although they were once also made with the more traditional Mini nose with the classic-looking grille. The first series of the Mini in station wagon form – which was built throughout the 1970s – was therefore not only longer at the rear, but also at the front.
The larger rear trunk was made accessible by two side-hinged doors, which together with the front doors made for a total of four doors. When Mini came up with a modern interpretation of the ‘Clubman’ in 2007, which was actually and the only one referred to as a Clubman, it tried to keep that classic shape as best as possible.
The fifth door
However, it was not very practical, so Mini was forced to come up with an interim solution. The new Clubman received an inconspicuous door on its right side that swung open backwards. So a fifth door, but in a less traditional sense of the word. That door made the rear seat more accessible from one side of the car, so that the Clubman also had to be able to function sufficiently as a family car. Nice in theory, but in practice only one rear side door – which could only be opened if the front passenger door was also open – was also not very practical.
And that’s a shame, because after the convertible, the modern Clubman was the first BMW-Mini body style in addition to the three-door (later a roadster, coupé, Paceman, five-door and Countryman would follow). A car that had to make the revived brand practically usable for a wider audience.
The fifth door was a ‘suicide door’.
The sixth door
The last generation of Clubman really succeeds in that. In addition to two ‘luggage compartment rear doors’, that car also has two regular rear doors, making it more or less as practical as a regular five-door station wagon. The latest and current generation Clubman is therefore good for higher total sales figures than the previous one, even though that car only ‘suffered’ from in-house competition from 2010 in the form of the Mini Countryman.
Just under 5,000 copies of the first-generation modern Mini Clubman rolled over the counter in the Netherlands, compared to more than 10,000 copies for the current generation. The Mini Countryman, which has also been working on its second generation for some time now, is doing much better than the Clubman in terms of sales. Because the raised carriage of the Countryman is also more suitable for hiding battery packs, it is not very surprising that Mini chooses to say goodbye to the Clubman. We will miss its double rear doors a bit, because to our knowledge, the station Mini was the only modern passenger car in series production that it ever had. So apart from company car-like ones. We do get something new in return: Mini adds the ‘Aceman’ to its range.
Six doors!
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl