In Da Clubster: San Francisco design student beats Mini to speedster punch

Variety is the spice of life – or so they say, but that seems to be the case over at BMW's Mini division, where the variants of their entertaining little runabout have been pouring out like Cristal in the V.I.P. Room. First came the hatchback, then the cabrio, then the Clubman, a crossover is nearly here, a rally version is rumored to be under consideration, and a coupe concept was just unveiled the other day. But before the party's over, Mini is expected to make a slick little speedster with a sportier flair than its existing convertible. That car could be just around the corner, but one student got tired of waiting and designed one himself.

Rather than simply Photoshopping a more rakish windshield onto the production cabrio (Mini's new coupe concept hadn't been shown when this concept was germinated), Richard Mitchell – a transportation design graduate from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco – instead conceptually started with the BMW 1 Series platform to give his design, called the Clubster S, a longer profile with rear-wheel-drive. Mitchell combined typical Mini touches with design attributes from other examples from England's deep roadster back catalog, and built it into a compelling 1:5 scale clay model, which you can check out along with a series of renderings in the gallery below.

[Source: DeviantART]