What is a Clubman?

There are loads of websites that can tell you all about the history of the clubman, and the original Colin Chapman designs leading to the Lotus 7 - I won't list them all here because if you're reading this you've probably heard of Google which is really all you need to know. However, what's more interesting from my point of view is - why would someone want a clubman?

The clubman to my mind is the ultimate driving experience - there's no other way of feeling more connected to car, the road and the environment (sometimes too much so for the last one) than in a clubbie. There's no power steering, no power assisted brakes, no trick electronics to keep you on the road - and there doesn't need to be. The clubman as a design is so lightweight, easy to drive and communicative that all of this additional stuff just doesn't need to be there.

"Modern" vehicles have all these wonderful features designed to take away your ability to drive the car. They separate you from the road and the conditions through layers of electronics designed to make you "safer". So, if you push a modern car too hard through a corner, it may electronically adjust the drive to the wheels, ignore your throttle inputs and safely steer you through the corner. All that means is that you think you're a better driver than you are, and you might end up pushing the thing to the point where even the electronics can't save you - and you're certainly going to fast then to save yourself.

The clubman simply does away with all of that and tells you all of the information you need to know in order to drive the car. You know how the car is reacting, you know when your pushing too hard. The nice thing is they're so capable you rarely (OK, I rarely) pushed it beyond it's limits before I got scared and backed off. Just means I wasn't trying hard enough....

So there you go - if you consider yourself a driver in the purist sense of the word, then you need to have driven a clubman at least once in your life. If you do that, it's a short step to buying one, and a slightly longer step to building one. You won't regret it.