Mini Clubman is the grown-up car with teen spirit

I REMEMBER a time many, many moons ago when, early every Saturday, my Dad would gather myself and a gang of my mates — usually about 12 or 14 of us — pack us all into the back of a Mini Traveller which was in the family at the time and take us to soccer practice.

Squeezing a mob of pre-teen young fellas into what was effectively the “estate” version of the Mini was, back in the early 1970s, nothing exceptional. Public transport was neither practical nor affordable for a one-man-show who had been badgered into the exercise by his youngest football-mad son.

So the Mini had to suffice and it accomplished the feat with extraordinary ease, now that I think about it. There were not too many big bruisers amongst us, and we actually managed to get everyone in with little difficulty — two in the front alongside the driver and the rest of us baled into the back via the double “barn” doors at the rear.