Hi, my name is Jeff, and I’m a sports car snob. I hate to admit it, but it’s true. I love a car that’s small, fast, lithe, and sexy-looking. Maybe that makes me shallow, but it’s a lifelong prejudice that I’ve held. Many’s the time I’ve scoffed at the terminally uncool, riding around town in frumpy transportation, smug in the knowledge that my car was better, faster, and usually cheaper than their dumpy shoebox on wheels.
Don't judge this book by its cover
So, what am I supposed to make of the Mazda5? Mazda doesn’t call it a minivan, but that’s what it is. It’s smaller than the typical minivan, but it’s got dual sliding doors, third row seats, and the sloping front we’ve come to associate with the soccer-team haulers that have dominated the last 20 years of American motoring.
It’s almost impossible to buy a used MINI Cooper in America today. They just aren’t available, and those that are for sale are fetching almost-new prices. The reason is obvious - with gas pushing $4.50/gallon in most of the country, a car that gives you 37 MPG (28 city) without even trying is in high demand. Especially when that car is as useful and as much fun to drive as a MINI Cooper.
Still Great Fun and a Great Value
Journalistic ethics demand that I admit up front that I’m a MINI fan. I drive a 2005 Cooper S, and my wife drives a 2004 Cooper. In 1.5 years, when our daughter turns 16, the plan is to buy Mom a new Clubman S and let the kid drive the Cooper. We’re a MINI family. We drank the kool-aid.
But look at that again. As an automotive journalist, I drive a lot of different cars. I’ve been in the Subaru Impreza WRX and STI. I’ve driven the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, VW R32, Volvo C30, MAZDASPEED3, and so on, right down the line. And at the end of the day, I’ve never found a car that I like as well as my MINI for the money. Even some cars that cost several times the MINI’s modest purchase price don’t really measure up. So both sides of our garage are still MINI-occupied territory. (Of all those above, only the Mazda and the Mitsubishi came close to swaying my loyalties.)
A few weeks ago, we reviewed the MINI Cooper Clubman and found it generally good, but substantially underpowered to suit our tastes. We believed that the MINI Cooper S Clubman would be the Clubman to have, and we're happy to say we got our chance to put the S Clubman edition through its paces in beautiful Carmel Valley, Calif. this week and it lived right up to our high expectations.
The Cooper S Clubman is the real thing
The second year of the turbocharged engine has lost none of its zip, and the Clubman's long wheelbase makes for a quick, yet stable platform. We're still not fans of the new dash design, but if you're shopping Clubman, you really need the S version to keep the Sport in the world's best real Sport Utility Vehicle.
Hatchbacks 
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