Despite the Mini being one of BMC’s most prominent success stories of the 1960s, with two million built during that first decade, transforming popularity into profit was always a challenge. Indeed, whether the Mini ever made a profit has long been debated. But as with any business, there was a desire for more – and the Mini Clubman would be one of the avenues explored.
To help in its quest to make its model ranges more profitable, Joe Edwards of BMC – by then known as British Motor Holdings (BMH) following its merger with Jaguar – managed to poach Ford’s product planner and stylist, Roy Haynes, who had recently penned the hugely successful MkII Cortina. Haynes’ arrival was announced in October 1967, and he would be joined by fellow Ford stylists Paul Hughes and Harris Mann at the new BMH/Pressed Steel studios at Cowley.
The new design team had been recruited to rationalise BMH’s bloated array of models into a simpler range, a task that included restyling some of the existing cars to give them a better chance of success. For the Mini, Haynes’ brief was to produce a restyled model to replace the range-topping Riley Elf and Wolseley Hornet, which could be sold at a premium price but with lower production costs.
Front… and rear?
That car would eventually become the Mini Clubman, and although details are thin on the ground, photographs captured at the time suggest the project was intended to be more ambitious than simply a Ford-inspired restyled nose and interior. Images used in the book by Rob Golding (Osprey, 1979) show a couple of potential solutions, one of which retained the Elf/Hornet’s rear end and mixed it with the Clubman front. Another shows a prototype car with the Clubman front end taking shape (albeit looking rather more like a Vauxhall Viva HB) and a bulbous
