• Back    • Refer To Friend   • Print

The new Mini Clubman wagon launches in March with a ‘fifth’ door that opens on the ‘wrong’ side for Australia, but the company denies it creates a safety issue.

The Clubman’s so-called ‘Clubdoor’ makes it easier for passengers to get into and out of the new Mini’s back seat. It opens onto the pavement side in left-hand-drive markets such as Europe and America but opens into the traffic side locally.

Mini’s parent company BMW took the decision not to convert the rear-hinged door arrangement for right-hand-drive markets – even the brand’s ‘home’ nation of England.

Mini Australia spokesman Alexander Corne admits cost was one of the factors involved in the decision.

“Manufacturing is one reason [the door is on one side only] because engineers would have had to move the fuel-filler cap,” says Corne.

The fuel-filler cap is positioned above the rear wheel arch on the passenger side, though apart from sharing its doors with the Mini hatchback the Clubman is all-new from the A-pillars back.

Corne says the door won’t be an issue for the Clubman’s target market.

“In our market, the majority of customers are the sole occupant of the car,” he says. “The door is a convenience factor for them, for putting bags on the rear seat.

“Most Mini customers would either not have children or their children would have left home.”

The Clubdoor works in near-identical fashion to the ‘freestyle’ doors on either side of the Mazda RX-8. It can only be opened by either the driver or rear passenger once the driver’s door has been opened.

Mini says buyers who do have children have the option to let them out on the pavement side by using the passenger door – just like they would with the original hatchback.

The wagon concept was also designed to be like no other.

“If the Clubman had been made with four [full-size] doors, the car would have been even longer,” says Corne. “But then it would have been like any other five-door [vehicle]. We wanted a point of difference.

“And we wanted to retain the hardtop’s dynamics while adding another flavour to it.”