At the time of writing, the Mini lineup in France goes as follows:





Stefanie Wurst, Head of the MINI brand at BMW Group, told TopGear that the Clubman’s pruduction is coming to an end. Interestingly enough, she also told TG that she currently drives a Clubman…
Saying that stopping the production of the Clubman will mark the end of what Mini really stands for might be a little pessimistic. But let me explain myself.
The Mini Cooper, the original one, was praised for its compactness, and it is today considered as one the greatest of the supermini class.
When Mini made its grand comeback in the early 2000s, puppeted by the hands of BMW, the Mini Cooper had to stay on brand, set by the legacy of its predecessor: Small, yet practical. The Mini was called Mini for a reason… The new Cooper did exactly that, it also managed to keep the styling cues that made the Cooper as stylish as it was in the past.
It was a commercial success.


In 2007, the Clubman was released, designed with the same attention to the brand’s legacy as the Cooper.
The original Mini was available as a wagon, so it was only right to do the same within the new Mini/BMW lineup; The Clubman is simply an elongated version of its brother.
It too, was a success.

BMW did what any car manufacturer would, and capitalised on the gains created by their two retro-styling-inspired Mini’s, and that’s when it all started going downhill.
They added a new car to their line-up, in hopes of expanding their fleet and reaching more customers.
The Countryman was born.

I was eleven years old at the time, but I still remember thinking that this car didn’t deserve the Mini badge. I still stand by my statement, even though I’m twenty-four years old now, and hopefully wiser than I was at eleven. The Countryman is a crossover, which is a mix-and-match of a compact car and an SUV. It is all of what those two things should be, a four-door, four-wheel drive, practical, high ride-height AWD vehicle, but it literally isn’t a Mini, as it is the same size as its rivals. And yet, much to my dissatisfaction, it was a commercial success.
The 2023 Mini Cooper is longer than a VW Polo, an Audi A1, and my Seat Ibiza, and slightly shorter than a VW Golf, an Audi A3 and a VW T-Cross. To further my point, the 2001 Mini Cooper is FORTY centimetres shorter than it is now. I’m not even going to talk about the 5 door version.
In short (pun intended), the new Cooper doesn’t follow the fundamental rule that made Mini, Mini. And the Countryman is a crossover that takes as much real estate as any other vehicle of its category, so the same criticism goes for it.
But the Clubman is a Station Wagon, and to my knowledge, it’s the smallest wagon on the European market.
It is therefore the only real Mini on sale today.
So, getting rid of it is getting rid of everything Mini originally stood for.
At this pace, BMW will rebrand Mini as Big before the end of 2024.
It wouldn’t even surprise me.
Max,

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