I personally can't decide yet if I love the shooting brake version of the MINI or not but I think that at least, it helps the Mini being able for a broader chunk of the premium supermini segment.

Compared to the "regular" MINIs, the new Clubman is 24 cm longer (a little bit more than 9 inches), which allows to have 8 extra cm (like 3 inches) for rear passengers' legroom. This allows the car to be homologated as a 5-seater, compared to the 4-seater of the standard offerings.

The offered trims are only the Cooper versions (Cooper D, Cooper and Cooper S) and three engines are available. Besides the 1.6 gasoline, which was co-developed with Peugeot and found in the 207, the Mini Clubman arrives with a diesel offering good for 110 HP and with very good green figures 109 g/km C02. The Clubman, as the rest of the MINI offerings, arrive with improvements to optimize fuel economy and emission management, such Auto Start-Stop, Brake Energy Regeneration and a Gearshift Point Indicator.

Prices are a bit high, so start saving now: MINI Cooper 14,235 GBP, MINI Cooper D 15,400 GBP and MINI Cooper S 17,210 GBP (multiply by 2 to get a rough approximation of the price in US dollars).

Gallery: 2008 Mini Clubman

Related:

• A MINI running over water?
• Stop-start Minis coming in to Europe in September
• Will this be 2008's "It" car? MINI Cooper EV starts production

Full press release after the jump.