The first car I ever drove was a Mini Cooper. My dad’s. It had an Abarth twin-pipe exhaust, a walnut facia, a leather gearknob and a steering wheel so small an American basketball player could have spanned the extremities of its rim with one hand. Those were the days.

Of course, I could never have imagined that one day I would run a car that had a speedometer larger than the wheel my blanched fingers and knuckles were wrapped so tightly around. As for it being in a quaint little Mini estate, called either Traveller or Countryman back then, re-imagined and upscaled for the 21st century by BMW with a twin-scroll-turbo 172bhp 1.6-litre engine, a barn-door tailgate, a funny little suicide door on the driver’s side, weird two-tone paintwork and something called a Chili Pack – not even Nostradamus could have seen that one coming.

Let’s just say the past 10 months and 14,000 miles have been interesting. I never expected anything less. And as the Clubman has delighted and disappointed in roughly equal measure, it seems only right to round things off by dealing with each column in turn.

First, then, the pluses. In a nutshell, that’s everything forward of the B-pillar. Or, to put it another way, the half that’s identical to the regular Cooper S hatch; most importantly, the bit that contains the engine and gearbox. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: what a cracking motor. Our Clubman started out feeling fast and by the time it left us it had become almost laughably rapid. I doubt it was producing quite as much power as our previous Cooper S (hatch) long-termer, which showed 208bhp on the dyno, but I’d have been surprised if the Clubman was far shy of 200bhp. The consensus seems to be that these engines consistently punch above their weight.

The lagless throttle response and bounteous torque from modest revs gave its performance an effortless, big-boned quality rare in a car with a small, four-cylinder engine. Lovely light, snicky gearchange too, though once, trying to out-dazzle myself away from the lights, I pulled the lever clean away from the linkage going from first to second. A firm whack with the palm of my hand relocated it, but embarrassing nonetheless. An average consumption of around 30mpg was pretty good considering the available and frequently exercised poke, while the petrol tank was big enough to allow over 300 miles between refills.

Second, the cabin. Gloriously indulgent and over-styled it may be, but I loved it, especially the classy gimmicks like the ambient mood lighting that could be switched from orange to blue with all shades of purple in between, and the gentle ‘bing-bong’ audible alert; so much more soothing than a crude beep. Then there were the great seats and driving position, feel-good steering wheel (only slightly bigger than the speedo), excellent forward visibility, stacks of headroom and, with one exception we’ll come to in a moment, terrific build quality.

I’d go on to mention the steering, which, in steady-state cornering, possessed all the feel and darty precision we’d come to expect from the latest-generation Mini. Trouble was, it seemed to have acquired a big dollop of additional torque steer at the helm of the longer, chubbier, less structurally rigid Clubman. Which brings me to the minuses.

Although our Clubman could be hustled down a twisty road at a lick that would have impressed any drainpipe-loving rodent, its chassis simply never felt as agile, biddable and together as that of a Cooper S hatch. Instead of moving all-of-a-piece and having that lovely feeling of swivelling around the driver’s hips, it was as if the rear end was a fraction behind, always playing catch up. In short, the front and back didn’t gel.

Other downers. The ‘Efficient Dynamics’ engine stop-start function fitted to our car drove me mad in, er, stop-start traffic. I switched it off. Beautifully engineered as the twin tailgate doors were with their self-opening hydraulic struts, they created a significant blind spot in the rear-view mirror so you couldn’t tell what you were being followed by and what sort of tear up might ensue: with a Fiesta ST or the bisection of your licence.

Were I a cruel person, I would have made my 84-year-old mother-in-law travel in the back whenever possible. If the harshness of the ride didn’t inflict the necessary discomfort, the trauma of negotiating the pincer action of the driver’s door and rear-hinged ‘Club’ door when getting in and out (and into traffic rather than onto the pavement as the door was on the wrong side) would have surely done the trick. She only travelled in the back once.

Then there’s the ‘estate car’ bit. Even by the standards of half-serious boutique load luggers, the Clubman’s real-world cargo capacity was tiny. I couldn’t think of one mid-sized family hatch that wasn’t better.

The most surprising flaws were the increasingly persistent and annoying facia rattle and the paint flaking from the front bumper and fog-light cowls. They were both fixable, though. Harder to rectify was the lowlife who decided to add a second four-foot long keying to the one on the other side just days before the Clubman was due to go back. Thing is, and a little to my surprise, I felt protective towards the car. For all its foibles, we’d had a laugh together. I was sorry to see it go.