Clubman Caught Undisguised at Photoshoot

Both my wife and I love the look. I am amazed at how good the rear looks and I really like the silver roof and accent. When the initial pictures of the camouflaged rear came out, I was leery of what it would look like. Kudos to MINI!

Two Questions, please:

1. In the photos here and in previous shots, http://www.autoweek.nl/newsdisp.php?ID=6706 there appear to be vertical bars splitting the side windows between the B and C Pillars. Is this just to disguise the car, or will all the Clubmans have this?

2. Where are the 5 spoke wheels that have been mentioned in this thread, and in the previous thread on Clubman photos? Thanks

The new 5 spokes look very nice.

love it, except for the silver roof and rear end treatment, i’m thinking all Hot Chocolate, Brown interior, anthracite headlining, sat nav …. can’t wait :-)

I don’t like the roof styling. It looks like the BMW dream team have tried to make it look like a Touring. But hey, call me old fashioned. If they only had one rear door how would it open? The Third door on RH is bad enough for RHD markets. This will not be popular with mothers trying to get kids outta the back into traffic for us in English markets. Otherwise I give it a big tick.

Hey Billy, I think I will heed your recommendation of Nightfire Red/Black roof. I think that combo will look the business! Any other recommendations in terms of wheel size/design and interior trim options?

I have to say this years colour is Pepper White/Black. If you notice how many companies are using white as their ‘face’ cars – cars in advertisements etc. Mercedes and BMW especially. To compliment this I’d suggest the black Lounge Leather with cream piping and anthracite head lining. Of course the new exclusive 5 spoke alloys should be considered, because they are exclusive – and the ’55 is a pretty exclusive car. I think many more people, especially those who post here and eventually purchase a Clubman, would and maybe should refer to it as a ’55 – makes you seem ‘in the know’ ;-)

I love how I brought up an important point about the rear track width and the handling downsides of it and its been completely overlooked. Maybe I should rephrase it so it’ll be noticed here…

Wow! The new rear fenders LOOK really PRETTY. They will make my new R55 LOOK much COOLER. And the rear seat will be BIGGER too, which means I have more LEATHER to fondle when I’m LOOKING at my MINI in the garage and showing off all my PRETTY options to my friends. Hmm, I wonder if the handling will suffer at all… oh well, I don’t push the car anyway. Back to the LOOKS, that silver treatment on the rear sure is SEXY, I’m sure lots of people will notice how PRETTY my car is if I get that option too!

Drew

This link from above actually has some great through the window shots of the interior:

http://www.autogespot.com/index.php?id=313

You can see that they are repeating the oval ring theme on the side panels of the back seat. Looks very cool.

By having the rear wheels out further it can actually cause the car to plow more through corners and might add a lot of understeer.

I think that concern was minimized for me when the last of the high speed testing videos seemed to demonstrate that MINI had adequately addressed any potential shortcomings related to the longer wheelbase. I believe that the R56 handling improvements will carry over to the R55 and my trust in the MINI engineers left just the physical appearance component of the buying decision to chance. But, the point is well taken and I am eager for actual dimensional specs as well, including any rear track changes made in conjuction with the additional length – since that 120mm (slightly less than 5 inches) figure seems low based on everything we’ve now seen.

I want a white roof, and no two-tone on the back.

Then please put a passenger seat door on BOTH sides of the car – I will not buy one without that. (Or at least, put it on the driver’s side appropos each market, for heaven’s sake!!)

And lastly, 4WD and Diesel – I’ll buy TWO!!

I’m really pleased with these pictures! I think the R55 looks great. It will be weird to have no white-roof option, though. I am too young to need more space than what my R53 offers me, but I think this will definitely be in my considerations when I’m older and have a family and need a tad bit more space. I really hope they make a 4 door AWD. And the tail lights look a little odd, but I suppose they’ll grow on me.

That was a good point about the bumper fitting the Euro license plate. I’m anxious to see what the North American bumper will look like.

Also, I one of my favourite features of the rear of the R55 was the big MINI logo which I pictured as probably being a handle of some sort as well. I dislike how the MINI badge is in the corner and the name on the other side. Too North American/conventional for my tastes, but I’m glad that my dislikes about the R55 are all minor details as it’s an overall job very well done!