Mini gets a new flagship

The car park exercises also showed the car has a natural tendancy to understeer - with the 24cm longer Clubman being the less capable of the two.

The steering in general is nice and sharp with few worries about torque steer. There is a slight tendancy for the wheels to tramline on heavily cambered roads.

After the car park exercises there was a chance to put the JCW through its paces on rural Leicestershire roads and fuel economy came in at around 27mpg - pretty good for a sports car. More sedate use should push this up into the mid thirties.

The ride is firm but you get plenty of feedback about the road surface. Refinement is good too - this is no stripped-out boy racer.