Today was my first day of cardio rehab, which is basically where I have to get up ungodly early, go to a hospital-run gym, and do exercise things while wearing a few sensors seemingly designed to rip as much chest hair off as possible when you remove them. This is all because my aorta exploded late last year, you see.
Anyway, on the way back home, I was at a stoplight behind a second-gen Mini Clubman when I noticed something about the car that was, um, unsettling. One of those things you see and you can immediately think of like 30 people who will absolutely hate knowing it exists. I’m talking about the Clubman’s badge placement at the rear.
Here’s the thing about the Mini Clubman – and I should mention I’m talking about the modern, BMW-built Clubman that is sort of the Mini version of a wagon, but not named like the original Mini version of a wagon, the Traveler, and not the original British Leyland facelifted Mini Clubman; here, this should help:
Now, in all versions of Mini-based wagons, you’ll note that instead of a liftgate or hatch, there’s a pair of side-hinged doors. It’s a great and distinctive detail, and is part of the charm of the car; I’m very pleased BMW kept this design on the modern versions of the Clubman. From the rear, the central split makes the Clubman a very symmetry-focused car, which is why I find the badging decision so baffling.
The way Mini badges the Clubman is via the old classy-car trope of individual chrome letters with very generous kerning, or letter spacing, for an effect that looks like C L U B M A N. Those of you good at math may have noted that there are seven letters in clubman, an odd number. This means unless you want to split the “B” in half, you’re going to be in a situation where you have four letters on one side of the central door-split, and three on the other if you try to place this badge centrally.
If there was no central split in the rear, this would be easy; you’d just make sure the B was on the centerline, and there were three letters on either side of it. But you can’t do that with the central door gap, so we end up with this:
The green boxes show the distance between the outer letters and the edge of the taillights, and, as you can see, the left is much closer than the right. The badge is off-center, shifted closer to the left edge.
I just can’t understand why this was considered okay? I mean, it’s not the biggest deal, but if you have a car with a literal line running down the center of it, why would you choose to attempt a center-mounted badge setup on your car that is inherently incapable of being centered?
Humans are really, even strangely good at visually finding the center of things, and many people feel genuinely unsettled when something is just off-center enough to be barely noticed. It’s uncomfortable, and almost worse if it’s subtle, like in the case of the Clubman.
Plus, it’s an un-forced error; they could have stuck a smaller Clubman badge on one of the sides. That Mini badge on the left would have been a good candidate to be split down the middle and stuck in the center, and a Clubman badge could have taken its place.
As it stands, it just looks wrong. This was a baffling decision! I’ve met car designers, they’re incredibly fussy people, very aware of How Things Look and How They Should Look and they’re always all about concepts like how They’re Not Going To Be Seen With You Unless You Change That Awful Shirt and that sort of thing. This badging deliberate sloppiness just seems completely antithetical to them.
The problem isn’t the asymmetry; asymmetry is fine if you intend it. But in this case, it’s clear that they wanted it to be centered, and couldn’t do it. And didn’t have the dignity to just admit it and move on.
Ugh. Why? Does this bother anyone else? Am I just being a jerkhole?
Now I don’t think our esteemed hosts have a tip line, but I would love to see my subscription dollars go towards an article about why we don’t get more cars with barn doors in the rear.
For vehicles where the ability to deal with cargo is a selling point I don’t see why they all come with liftgates.
Also liftgates of vehicles of a certain size are, probably, going to be responsible for a significant part of my loss of brain function through the years.
I had a clubman for 3months while my car got repaired. The badging pissed me off every single time I saw the rear of the car.
The barn doors were infuriating, offering a small opening and when street parking with a car behind opening the doors trapped you between themselves and the car behind and opening just one door didn’t really give enough access. I completely understand why it’s not a popular solution, when it also has twice the parts, and probably twice the cost, of a normal hatch.
Similarly, my i3 has the same issue with the doors when parking in car parks with another car adjacent. I forgive the i3, but didn’t the Clubman, revealing my general indifference to the Mini.
Jason, please don’t watch baseball. Almost every team has this problem and even worse many of them are in cursive.
Ugh, thank you, Nike. Your comment made me think of this article: A Uniformity of Errors
I feel like the problem is that they can’t center it but they half-ass trying to do so.
They should have embraced the lack of symmetry and make the split between CLUB and MAN centered so each door had something to say.
Take to framed photos of the same size and hung close to each other. If you have one that is a 1/2″ lower than the other, it will will drive you nuts as it looks like a mistake. Make it 3″ lower and it will not drive you nuts as it is intended.
If you are going to miss, then miss by a mile.
For barn doors? Yeah I’ll forgive something like this for barn doors.
The first time I saw one of these I thought “that badge is shitting-in-my-eyes terrible, have Landrover bought MINI?”
There is an engineering thing called “appropriate quality” where you don’t make things perfect, you make them good enough. It saves us all money.
Anyway, at MINI it seems like they have a similar but lower standard of “this will not quite lose us enough sales that I personally will get in trouble”.
They also did that car with one long door one side, two doors the other side and didn’t reverse it to match whichever side the steering wheel was on. Urgh.
Probably designed by somebody who can’t park in just ONE stall.
The visual weight of the offset lettering is balanced by having the driver sit on the right side of the car. Works great in RHD markets, makes it even worse in LHD.
This is what we get for leaving the empire.
The benefits of leaving have to be worth it, I mean, look how well the US has done compared to Australia…
Your national park set ups are better ????
Honestly, that doesn’t bother me too much. It’s a word! How often do you complain about a badge on the side technically not being a reflection since they’re both oriented to be readable?
No, my only archnemesis in this respect is the Nissan Cube. “Intentional asymmetry” but to an extent that it becomes criminal.
Boy howdy do you (and the people around me) not want to know how much I internally complain about word kerning, spacing, and inconsistent font….
I mean, I’m generally picky, too, I think. The infamous “MegaFlicks” picture comes to mind.
I just think out of the available options that involved keeping “CLUBMAN” badging, they probably picked one of the less bad options.
If they kept the kerning consistent on both sides, then I think it would further highlight the difference in width that Jason is talking about.
It’s awfully annoying. This would literally prevent me from purchasing one of these. Humans are built to find symmetry attractive and pleasing to the eye.
That’s insane to me. I will always have aesthetic preferences, but I mean…I drive a Prius and I hate the name “Prius” (which sounds like “priapism”). I didn’t let it stop me from buying one, because in spite of its name, it does everything I need it to.
Similarly, I used to drive an Econoline, and I didn’t like that it didn’t have amber rear turn signals, but that really isn’t an option in the USDM van market, to my knowledge. (Except a ’92-’94 Econoline, but those are rare and/or falling apart at this point.)
“They’re Not Going To Be Seen With You Unless You Change That Awful Shirt”
You’ve been wearing your Airplane T-shirt again apparently.
Is a clubman like a batman?
ICWYDT
No, more like and Ironman.
A woodsman, if you’re taking a long drive.
I can hit a long (well, 150 180 metres) drive, or a straight drive, but never both at the same time.
Edit: probably because i dont practice; a good golfing day is a good car driving day.
I hope your rehab goes well, because if you ever see a Clubman with the Union Jack taillights that point the wrong direction when they flash… I don’t want to think about the consequences.
Torch has written about that phenomenon before.
I KNOW.
I could’ve sworn he wrote an article about it
He did. He needs to protect himself from OCD overload.
The new Santa Fe lettering is very similar. I saw it and immediately hated it. It looks like the lettering is center on the back but the 5-2 spacing is WEIRD.
https://picolio.auto123.com/auto123-media/Hyundai-Santa-FE-2024_ARRIERE.JPG
Gah! Don’t like it, no.
That just looks like a letter between A and F has fallen off.
I’d be far too tempted to replace “Santa” with “Auto da” to ever be allowed to buy one.
I’d make it say SANTA ELF
It also helps that M is a wide letter or can be a wide letter in many fonts.
They should have embraced their German ownership and called it the ‘KLUBMANN’. Problem solved.
There’s a Tesla in town where the owner/operator/responsible party debadged the thing, and rebadged it as “ALOHA” using a font similar to Tesla’s.
It works.
My point is, KLUBMANN badges are an aftermarket sales opportunity.
I’m not generally one for debadging, but I think I’d have to. The owner would probably get mad, so I just hope not to see one in the wild.
Jason,
Very happy that you are progressing on your recovery! Hopefully this will just be a story to bore your grandkids in the decades to come.
And, yes the spacing is weird on the clubman – the B is much closer to the split than the M. Now I cannot unsee it!
I hate unforced errors like this too, even on non-car stuff it happens way too often.
there is one of those named developments on the way to my parents house and the kerning on the big sign at the street entrance is so off, I almost want to stop and fix it myself.
Club-Man
And his oversized sidekick, Country-Man!
Shouldn’t it be Count-ryMan Careful with the pronunciation though.
Famous Australian political insult / retort (requires knowledge of old poltical party names).
See item 5 at https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/21/gough-whitlam-in-his-own-words
Is there comfort in numbers? Will you, perhaps, twitch less having shared this and knowing many of us will now twitch?
I’m off to find a Clubman to tailgate while I work this out
Should’ve called it the Clubperson for an even split. Or, better yet, stuck with Traveler.
CLUBTHEM
maybe that isn’t the greatest idea…
That’s reserved for the Seal Hunter models.
Stay in your lane please. /s
my 1967 Traveler doesn’t understand why its descendent is called a Clubman, and why the name badge isn’t angled on the right rear door as it should be. confusing times to be a classic car.
Oh, the ol’ “people without houses” nomenclature issue.
I read this a few times thinking it said “people without horses” and I was … so confused. Is it a horsepower reference? Something about how rich people have horses? (o_O)
Yet another reason car makers need to stop spelling out the brand and/or model name across the back. It’s just ugly.
you have to give it to Scion then because all of their models made for nice compact and simple badges.
It adds character when the adhesive starts failing and the letters fall off in random ways
It’d be better if it was symmetrical, but it does not bother me enough that I would comment on it.
You have possibly ingested the recommended dosage of pills, JT.
I hate this. I feel like Adrian could rant for days about something like this…
Best not to get him started.