Well its been about four months since I wrote the deposit check and my clubman finally hit production status this week. I need to take delivery on 9/12 to coincide with a lease turn in on the Volvo.

After much flip flopping I finally decided to go with BRG/Black after having Dark Silver/Black on order for a while. Not content with the configurator's inability to combine BRG with HC cloth interior I asked my MA to look into it and he said no problem. Next thing I know I have an order sheet showing the once unobtainable combo. BRG was always my first choice but I was not happy with the limited interior color line options that were "permitted" with it.

The only doubts I have with the order have to do with a lack of a sunroof and and the standard gray headliner. I love sunroofs, but the lack of a proper sunshade is a real oversight IMO. Here in Missouri the sun can really beat down on you and it is often necessary to block the sun completely, particularly when parking the car for extended periods. As for the headliner, the black would have integrated better with the black dash, but without a sunroof I feared the interior would be too dark. As it stands, the car will have quite an interior palette consisting of gray, black (shiny and matte), oak, HC, cream, etc.. It would have been nice to order a cream headliner and trim to match the color line, but the world is full of such dreams.

Oh, and if you are in the St. Louis area, our only dealer, Mini of St. Louis, is a fine dealership. They tried to charge me a $500 service fee on top of MSRP and I balked so they agreed to MSRP w/floormats. My MA is Mark and he is very helpful, having placed about 6 order changes over a few months time. However, if you are inclined, they have a knockout blonde there and she would be better to go for a test drive with. Similar to Minis I suspect she commands a premium over comparable models.

 

Congratulations! I'm jealous; I've just started the waiting process. Please post pictures when s/he arrives.

 

I have a Clubman very similar to yours. I think you should go with the anthracite headliner and the sunroof. I tinted my sunroofs which helped enormously. The anthracite headliner looks much better than the stock one on a HC interior, IMO.

Check my gallery for pics of the forbidden color combo. :-) And a pic of the tinted sunroofs too.

Regards,
Terry

 

Looks sharp Terry, what did the Sunroof tinting run for cost?

 

Thanks! Sixty bucks total for both sunroofs. -Terry

 

Nice spec moclubman - the wait is excruciating...

 

Well I checked and it looks like its too late to make any changes so I will either love the gray headliner, or learn to live with it. What they should have done is put the A,B, and C pillar trim in hot chocolate to make the whole car flow, then the color of the actual headliner (sans trim) would not have mattered much at all.

After more thought I think not getting the sunroof and saving the $1,000 was a good move. I like sunroofs, but with two panes and no hard cover, that interior must really get steamy and I pretty much sweat while eating ice cream in December.