You've probably looked at our previous post about the MINI Clubman Concept and said "just a concept car… nevermind!". But you shouldn't jump to conclusions quite so fast because MINI concepts of this type are usually about 90% production-ready, which means the new Clubman could be a winner.
Judging from the first videos of the concept, the Clubman is as practical and sexy as a French MPV and as powerful as a German one. If the production version maintains that true flat-folding cargo area, it's also by far the most practical MINI ever made.
"The MINI Clubman Concept shows how the MINI Clubman could be taken a step further: more interior space, a greater sense of high-end quality and yet still clever, bold and distinctive. In short: more car, more MINI," says Adrian van Hooydonk, Head of BMW Group Design,
The interior of the car is not production-ready by any means, but the design of the concept is totally different to the 2014 regular MINI's. Perhaps it will be more streamlined and ergonomic, by no means a bad thing.
Like the Opel Zafira, which many people probably forgot about, the Clubman Concept has two long strips of glass forming a unique panoramic roof. Anybody who's ever sat in the Zafira will tell you this is a fantastic feature to have.
But by far the coolest thing about the new Clubman is thesize of the thing. The car is 260 mm longer than the current Clubman, measuring 4,223 mm in total. At 1,844 mm in width, it’s also 170 mm wider, while height has grown by 25 mm to 1,450 mm. Simply put, it's a whole new class of car, bugger than its predecessors. With measurements lie that, a boot space of 400 liters or more is not unfathomable (current model has 260 liters).
We're pretty much guaranteed to get a range of brand new TwinPower turbo engines with 1.2, 1.5 and 2.0-liter displacements and outputs slightly better than before. Better gearboxes, better features and more tech will all be added.
The official autoevolution verdict: We like the Clubman Concept, a proper estate, rather than that awkward in-between designed for customers that didn't actually exist.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News