It was very much the end of an era at the MINI production plant in Oxford recently with the last ever MINI Clubman rolling off the production line. 

The somewhat quirky car can trace it heritage back 55 years when the first Clubman was introduced in 1969. It stayed in production until 1982 at which point it was thought to be consigned to the history books. However, when MINI came under the ownership of BMW the Clubman model made a surprise comeback in 2007. 

Today most people would think that the MINI Clubman is the estate version of the new era MINI. However, it is not quite that straightforward. The 1969 Mini Clubman was in fact just a facelift version of the classic MINI designed to widen the appeal. The main design change was a squared off front end, complete with square headlights. The Clubman was not to everyone’s taste, however, the estate version of the car did gain popularity and effectively became the Mini Estate offering in the 1970s, remembered especially for its split opening rear doors. 

When BMW bought MINI it planned to introduce an estate model, but at the time it did not have the rights to use the traditional MINI estate “Traveller” and “Countryman” names. It did, however, have the rights to the Clubman name and so used this for the new MINI estate car.  

The name stuck and the new MINI Clubman, with it retro design, complete with split opening rear doors, proved a big hit. A new generation Clubman was introduced in 2015. 

Signalling the end of an era, last year saw the introduction of a ‘Final Edition’ version of the Clubman, with a production run limited to 1,969 units to reflect its launch year. We might now have to wait another 25 years to see the Clubman return.