The Mini Clubman is dead, marking the end of the split-rear-doored, not-so-mini Mini.
Mini revealed it has now built the last ever car, a final flourish to the 1.1 million Clubmans (Clubmen?) built since 1969. Half of those million-odd cars were actually quite... 'mini', because we’re reliably informed that over 550,000 of the ‘modern’ versions (read: Massive BMW Ones) rolled out of Mini’s Oxford factory.
Of course we knew the end was nigh for the six-doored oddity. Late last year, Mini CEO Stephanie Wurst confirmed to TopGear.com that there wasn’t space for it, not with the incoming Aceman and the success of the Clubman’s bigger brother. “If you look at the sales numbers worldwide the Countryman doubles the Clubman,” said Wurst.
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So, in news that’ll surprise nobody: Big Car Sells More Than Slightly Less Big Car, Slightly Less Big Car Gets Canned. Sigh.
It brings an end to a line of cars that traces a line right back to the early Sixties, when – says BMW – BMC revealed a pair of wagons spun off the original Mini. These two, along with another pair of Mini variants, were rolled into one single car in 1969, and from there the Clubman grew in power and stripes and of course, size.
Some 600k original Clubmans were built before it was shelved in 1982. BMW resurrected it in 2007 as a longer, bigger take on its already bigger reinvented hatch, though… somehow decided it was prudent to fit a narrow rear door that opened backwards onto traffic (in right-hand drive markets, that is).
Successive facelifts thankfully removed this peculiar layout for a more traditional one – four doors, yay! – while keeping the split-rear-door intact. They’ve now been shut for the last time. Will you miss it?
NOTE: This story first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
