Mini Clubman

Price £23,310/£34,285 Model Cooper S All4 Driver Paul Horrell Why it’s here In moderating its eccentricities is it still a Mini?

I always advise against big-ticket options, because their monetary worth disappears by trade-in. Imagine spending £1,000 on a leather sofa then dumping it after three years. That’s what you do if you buy leather in most cars: wave goodbye to its entire value and buy it again when you get your next car.

But that’s changing, for two reasons. Firstly, more people get their cars on PCP or manufacturer leases. Second, with some cars, the options value is at least partially retained. So Mini has started to work this into its deals.

Take ‘my’ car. Without options, it’d be £239 a month over four years (with £4,267 deposit and £11,298 fnal payment).

Let’s begin with that sofa analogy. This particular car has sports seats with upgraded upholstery, a £980 option. If it were to degrade to valueless over the term, you would have to divide that fgure by 48, giving just over £20 a month (and that calculation assumes, falsely, interest-free credit). Actually you can get it for under £13 a month because it adds to the trade-in value. And it doesn’t increase your deposit.

The John Cooper Works Chili pack scores me LED headlights, body kit, JCW steering wheel, 18-inch road wheels, auto climate control and several other bits. Nice, but a scary-sounding pack price of £3,865 retail. If you divided that by 48 it’d be £81. But roll it into the PCP and it’s only £53 a month, saving you £1,300 over the term.

But some options aren’t such bankers. The Tech Pack mostly consists of posh navigation, head-up display, a hi-f upgrade. But navigation systems date quickly and look stale on used cars. The crude connnect guf on my car has already been superseded. Sure enough, there’s little saving over the fnance term: the option price is £2,150, which would imply £45 over the 48 months, and they can discount that only to £40. Still, maybe calling it a tenner a week makes it palatable.

Small wonder we’re a nation addicted to credit.