Autoblog Garage: ‘08 Clubman
May 27th, 2008
Autoblog.com recently posted one of the most glowing reviews of a Clubman I’ve seen. And, it was just a Clubman, not an S. A very favorable review.
The mini door is especially handy is if you have kids. I positioned my 2-year-old son’s car seat on the side with the Clubman-door, since that gave me more room to work with when it came time to buckle him in. My daughter, age 5, was fine climbing through the driver’s side and getting herself strapped into her booster. Parents still using the LATCH connections will find the anchors easily accessible through plastic tunnels in the seatbacks — no digging under the cushions is necessary. As a people carrier, the Clubman is a substantial improvement over the regular Cooper, whose back seats are sized for miniature pinschers and Micronauts.
Of course they have issues with the rear doors.
One thing that’s genuinely annoying about the Clubman is its rearward visibility (or, more precisely, the lack thereof). The barn doors look neat and all, but when closed, their meeting point obscures the middle third of the rearview mirror, rendering it essentially useless.
They did, however,like the way it drove.
Driving the Clubman is a great source of amusement. Give it a head of steam, hustle it along a curvy stretch of tarmac and watch the smiles come. It’s not all-powerful, but it’s wonderfully sorted, well-behaved and predictable, doing what you ask of it with little fuss. Torque steer is nonexistent with the base motor, which is just as happy to putter around in errand mode as it is for you to put the spurs to it when the road and conditions allow.
[ In the Autoblog Garage: 2008 MINI Cooper Clubman ] Autoblog.com
ontheroadagain May 27th, 2008 Link
Reply
