New York Times Tests the Clubman S
The New York Times takes a Clubman out for a spin and comes away impressed. Here’s an excerpt:
>In my baby-choked Brooklyn neighborhood, Cobble Hill, I see regular Minis with child seats wedged in back, and I wonder: who are these people, and what horrors would an MRI of their spines reveal? In these parked Minis, the front passenger seatback is reliably flipped forward, in mute acknowledgment of the Sisyphean task of baby installation and removal.
>The Clubman seems aimed as squarely at parents as sippy cups. And since my wife has declared our 16-month-old daughter off limits for top-speed tests, I put Bianca to use by inserting her through the open-sesame side door and into her child seat – a no-strain affair.
>While the back seat remains far smaller than that of a Honda Civic or other compact, it is now more usable for a toddler or limber teenager. Taller passengers will still demand a more socialist distribution of resources, with front occupants sliding forward.
Read on below…
+ Half a Loaf, for a Mini Appetite / New York Times
Ya know, I get so tired of all these journalists who bother to take the time to complain about the “high” price of MINIs without EVER considering the offset of having the Scheduled Maintenance included. No, it doesn’t make the MINI a low-rung pricer, but it sure is much more competitive than they all make it seem.
For that matter, I’m tired of seeing them try to one-up each other waxing prose about the idiosyncrasies of things like the Speedo, the back seats, the controls, etc. In trying to be creative and different, they all end up coming off the same – coming off as though speedo is so large that it obscures your view of the road and is wholly worthless; coming off as though the rear seat were no more useful than the rear seats in a Corvette.
In other words, they simply come off as though they’re trying to write “better” analogies about the same things that those before them already have. If they were as interested in assessing the cars as they are in just writing, then we might get some decent reads out of these reviews.
“limited edition” JCW Clubman?
I have a “03” MCS and a “08” MCS Clumman or would that be MCSC?
Any way I’m 6’5′ and I have no back proplems putting my 38 lbs 2 1/2year old into either.
I agree with Mini2GO. What are these reviews suppose to prove?
We love the “03” and the “08”. In fact we went shopping as a family yesterday, inthe MCS, and my wife commented on how she still likes the MCS.
After reading all the reviews, go and drive the Clubman. Don’t forget to bring $1000 for a the down payment.
You’ll need it.
Much ado about nothing. Bored journalists trying to nitpick and rant about non-existing issues or trying too hard to stereotype MINI buyers.
Hmm, I’ve never had any problems with the back seat, even in the R56. It’s not even all that impossible to get in and out.
But in the reviewer’s defense I will say this: there’s only so much you can write about a speedometer the size of a salad plate. And a reviewer would be completely remiss to write an article about the new MINIs and not mention that.
So what’s a poor reviewer left with?
“There is a speedometer. It tells you how fast you are going. You can also fit a salad on it, but it would slide right off into the cupholders because it’s horizontal. I do not recommend this. I also found that the cupholders are easy to clean.”
The speedometer is a handy place for a Nuvi GPS – which might actually get me to buy one.
Agreed about the tone and style of the review.