Wonky no longer: meet the new six-door Mini Clubman

Mini has revealed a brand new version of its Clubman estate-hatch-thingy. Here it is.

And the headline news is thus: not only will the new Clubman be the biggest Mini on sale, but it'll no longer have wonky doors.

The previous-gen Clubman featured, infamously, just one rear door: a reverse-hinging effort on the right-hand side. This one has two conventional rear-hinging doors, one on either side. Revolutionary, eh? With full doors comes better practicality, says Mini.

It's also broadly the dimensions of the BMW 2-Series Active Tourer, which, don't forget, is the first ever proper front-wheel-drive BMW.

The new Clubman sits on the same front-wheel-drive platform as that Beemer, and is thus considerably longer and wider than the regular five-door Mini hatch.

There is, Mini boasts, space for five full-sized humans, not a claim the old Clubman could have made with a straight face.

You'll notice the extended roofline, the new-generation Mini face, the split rear doors with redesigned tail-lights, and the redesigned cabin, too.

As ever with Mini, the central dial serves as the focal point of the dash - available in 6.5-inch or 8.8-inch full colour variants - which sits on top of a bank of toggle switches for things like air-con and the start button.

Engine-wise, you get to choose from a lovely turbo'd 1.5-litre three-cylinder petrol engine (as found in the Mini Cooper, and closely related to the unit in the BMW i8) with 136bhp and a 0-62mph time of 9.1 seconds, a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-pot in the Cooper S Clubman (192bhp, 0-62mph in 7.2 seconds), or a 2.0-litre diesel.

That one provides 150bhp, many torques and a 0-62mph time of 8.6 seconds. CO2 emissions stand at 109g/km.

All are hooked up to a six-speed manual gearbox driving the front wheels, though an eight-speed sports auto is available as an option on the four-cylinder models.

Prices start from £19,995 for the base, three-pot Cooper Clubman, rising to £22,755 for the Cooper S Clubman.

This being a Mini, there are many, many options available, the most popular of which will be the ‘Chilli' pack (Mini estimates more than half of new Clubman buyers will tick this box). This offers leather, sports seats, park distance control, auto air con and LED lights, all for the princely sum of £2,785.

How will it drive, you might reasonably ask? We won't find out for a couple of months, but Mini confidently promises the "highest level of ride comfort and brand-based go-kart feeling ever seen in a Mini."

And who doesn't want brand-based go-kart feeling, eh?

UPDATE, 26 June: We get hands-on with the Clubman

In a secret compartment of Mini's stand at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, TopGear.com had a hand-on preview of the new Mini Clubman. Here are some first impressions of the new mega-Mini in the metal:

• It's big. Properly big. The lengthy look is accentuated by how far that roof heads back horizontally, instead of tapering like on, say, a Ford Focus.

• The front is less awkward than the other new Minis. Making the car bigger means the bulbous lights and grilles look less fussy.

• This is the first Mini to boast a proper centre console - the central partition that sits between the driver and passenger. Mini has mounted its infotainment controller - nicked wholesale from parent BMW's iDrive - on top of it. It doesn't sound like much, but having the more cocooned feeling of sitting next to a centre console, and the BMW-ness of the control position, means it all feels very, well, BMW. Close your eyes and you could be in a 1-Series or 3-Series. The chunky steering wheel adjusts miles out of the dash, and lots of the minor buttons are more recognisably BMW. It's more mature, less zany.

• It's big in the back. Certainly leagues roomier than the ungainly-looking Mini five-door, with ample legroom for adults and surprisingly generous headroom thanks to that tall, straight roof.

• The boot doors are heavily sprung, so beware them flicking open and happy-slapping small children. The spring-loaded doors can be opened by waving a foot under the rear bumper, though, to help with hands-full loading. You can only shut the doors in one order - left first, then right.

• Dividing the boot doors looks great, but it does whack a big blind spot smack in the middle of the rear window. What price barn-door style?

• Mini insists the boot size is up there with a Golf or Focus, but whether the on-paper stats translate into usable, helpful boot space is up for debate.

• It's obvious that the new Clubman is a better executed, higher quality piece of design than the esoteric old car. But it'll still appeal far more to a style-led buyer than someone considering a small estate or regular family hatch for simple transport.