2008-06-29 12:09:34
A couple years ago I drove the John Cooper Works Mini-Cooper S, with its 200-horsepower engine, from the bottom of Ireland to the top: Mizzen Head to Malin, sea to shining sea (the North Atlantic Ocean), about 320 miles. Two days, playing rabbit for a rally by the Irish Mini Owners Club, such fun.
Yesterday morning I felt like I was back there. I should do this more often. I drove home from to the Columbia River Gorge from Portland, in a six-speed Mini Clubman, early in the morning, over parts of the historic Columbia River Highway. It’s tree-lined and twisting, up and down, crossing narrow stone bridges with moss-covered rails, past two majestic waterfalls, tall and narrow, dropping steeply from the Cascades to the Columbia River.
The Clubman is a stretched Mini, a 2008 model that’s back for a second life, having first entered the world in 1969. It’s a wonderful invention, a Mini station wagon of sorts, 10 inches longer than the Mini-Cooper, which makes it just one inch longer than the Honda Fit. The rear doors spread open like barn doors, also like its original inspiration, the Austin Maxi van that delivered bread and milk around Britain for decades. There’s even a half door on the passenger side to access the rear seat, where there’s sufficient leg room, especially for kids. With the rear seats folded, there’s a whopping 33 cubic feet of storage space. Too bad the front passenger seat doesn’t fold flat like the Honda Fit.
The Clubman was designed for young families that have outgrown the regular Mini. And for that, it works, at 32 miles per gallon.
Look how many groceries I got into my test Clubman, and that’s with the rear seat raised. The previous day it was full of boxes of racing parts for the Bandit, with the seats folded, as well as a big junkyard wheel for my one-ton Chevy 454 tow truck.
The Clubman I had, with a manual transmission and base 1.6-liter engine with a modest 118 horsepower (not the supercharged Mini-Cooper S), was true to its roots. It felt like a modern car in the quality of its ride and handling, and by being so solid. But like a throwback, you have to rev it to get it to work for you, and it likes it. Having to work that 118 horsepower made it a pure experience, driving over these roads.
I was surprised when the stability control light came on, over some bumps at full throttle, indicating the front end was getting light, not that it was actually breaking traction from the acceleration—well, maybe not that surprised, lots of systems are set that sensitively nowadays. You’d have to be thrashing this thing to its limit, to get it to understeer to the point where stability control would actually be needed. That’s on dry pavement; in snow, ice or rain, it would be a different story, and that’s what the stability control is for.
Redline comes at 6500 rpm, and it’s high-tech and gentle, with BMW technology; the power just goes flat and it stops revving. Shifting is fun, and the heel-and-toe execution is a joy, which makes me wonder about the driving ability of the USA Today automotive writer, who said it was impossible. But the review there is a good one overall, so here’s the link.
Small things I liked included the steering wheel with a nice grip. Firm suspension that might only feel too firm over speed bumps. Good front legroom. No rattles or shakes on this model with 5200 miles on it. The hill lock, which invisibly puts the brakes on when you’re trying to engage the clutch on a hill, so you don’t drift backwards—San Franciscans, where Mini-Coopers are popular, will love that feature, which Subaru did first.
I only came up on two or three cars in more than half an hour of spirited driving on this road, because it was so early. One of them was a Canadian guy in a Smart car, who took this picture for me.
He said you can get the diesel Smart up in Canada, but not the U.S., although the U.S. models are newer and better.
The radio recepion isn’t so hot. Actually, I’m finding a lot of radios in newer cars don’t get the reception that they did a couple years ago. I listen to KOPB, the Portland NPR station (satellite radio if the car is wired for it), and some radios pick it up through the Gorge, some don’t. The Mini wasn’t even close.
Also, the speedometer needle doesn’t agree with the digital readout inside the tach, when you set the cruise control. One read 74 mph and the other 78. There’s a ticket risk in that range, which one should you believe?
I truly lament the Mini’s instrument panel. They put a big tach over the steering column, like a drag-race car, a suggestion that the Mini is about sporty driving where you need to watch the tachometer more than you need to know how fast you’re going, which is nonsense. The instrument location is, or should be, based on priority. In fact, I’m re-doing the gauges in my Bandit racecar right now; in a racecar, you have to get information with as little interruption to your focus as possible, and it’s really no different on the highway. Location is everything.
There’s a ridiculously huge speedometer in the center of the panel. It’s just all so gimmicky, although it might be that today’s young Mini-Cooper buyer thinks it’s cool. They put it in the center because they build so many right-hand-drive Minis, this way they don’t have to change much. That’s fine, it makes sense, but it’s the sheer size of the thing. And there are pretentious little glossy black loopy bars lining the toggle switches, for example the windows. Did I really hear the words “ridiculous, stupid, ugly” in my tape recorder when I played back my notes?
But that’s just my purist opinion.
The Clubman starts at about $20,000, if you can find a dealer with one at that price, though don't hold your breath, I've heard there's an eight-month waiting list for any Clubman. But that price makes it only about $4000 more than a Fit, and that's awfully good, for all you get.
Sam Moses
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