BMW 120d
BMWs 1 Series Is At Its Best When Theres A Two-Litre Diesel Engine Up Front. Andy Enright Reports
You need to go back quite a way to find an appealing rear wheel drive small hatchback. BMWs favoured format may offer the purest driving characteristics but its a layout that an entire generation of young drivers are utterly unfamiliar with. The last equivalently sized car to offer rear-wheel drive handling was possibly Toyotas Corolla GT, a car that died in 1987. For seventeen years, nobody thought to offer anything in this market niche.
Now that
BMW have filled the void, its up to us to cherrypick the best model in their range for the purposes of review and that model happens to be the 120d.
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Its easy to forget quite how well drive to the back wheels works in a car like this. The 120ds engine is capable of developing a hefty 251lb/ft of torque at just 2,000rpm. Try deploying that as you accelerate out of a side turning in a front-wheel drive car and its a recipe for torque steer, that raggedy tugging of the steering wheel as the front tyres struggle to put down the power. Even at higher speeds, front-wheel drive cars with a hefty slug of torque can veer rather dramatically when they come on-cam.
Just try accelerating hard in a
Ford RS Focus with your hands off the wheel. On second thoughts dont. A ditch could beckon. Theres none of this corrupting influence with the 120d.
About the most extreme thing that ever happens is that in damp conditions the ESP light will give a little blink as it winds the power back slightly. Most of the time it just grips and goes. No drama, no writhing steering wheel or tramping axle. Just purity.
Although its only a matter of time before
BMW start shoehorning lusty six-cylinder engines into the 1 Series capacious engine bay, for the time being the 120d is the quickest version available. Its also the most economical, with near 50mpg economy available if you can temporarily refrain from trying to punch the throttle pedal through the bulkhead every time the traffic parts ahead of you. Driven in this manner the 120d will bludgeon its way through 60mph in 7.7 seconds and keep on until it runs out of lungs at 137mph.
Company car buyers will doubtless prick up their ears when they realise that this car can cruise economically, retain a good slug of its initial purchase price and emits a mere 151g/km of carbon dioxide.
"No drama, no writhing steering wheel or tramping axle. Just purity"
At £21,150 (for the SE range-topping version) its certainly not cheap though and you can go faster a good deal cheaper. What you dont get is the engineering integrity and overall feeling that BMW just understands how to build a sporting car better than anybody else in this sector. Refinement from the 163bhp engine is better than many petrol engined rivals and the power delivery isnt the usual bungee-cord all or nothing mess that afflicts many of the more powerful diesel engines in this price bracket. There is a sweet surge of torque from 2,000rpm but its manageable and has some duration to it, the slick gearbox effortlessly plugging you into the meat of the next gear up.
Things arent all ambrosia however. Open one of the narrow back doors and youll spot the trade off right away. Theres less room in the back of the 1 Series than youll find in a supermini like a
Honda Jazz. With a six-footer behind the wheel, legroom is shockingly bad and the transmission tunnel means that you wont ever want to travel piggy in the middle on the rear bench.
Thats not what the 1 Series is all about. If you want a practical car, go and buy a
mini-MPV. If you want the latest urban bauble that will turn heads and get tongues wagging, the 1 Series will be more your thing. At a stroke it manages to make the
Audi A3 in particular look ridiculously staid.
Of course, that styling isnt going to rest easy on every eye. For what its worth, we think its ugly but interesting, the scalloped surfaces and bold slashes pure Bangle-era BMW. The bowing sills and stumpy tail arent beautiful in any conventional sense but the 1 Series is a car that keeps you looking, trying to see what the designers were trying to pull off. If it was to merely make a very controversial shape, theyve certainly succeeded.
Youll forgive it the moment you sit inside. The rear wheel drive layout has done more than affect the way the car handles. With no requirement to set the front wheels back to accommodate a pair of rear facing driveshafts, the 1 Series has a pleasantly roomy footwell with no offset to one side. The engine is instead mounted largely behind the front axle which gives rise to the long bonnet.
The cars bulkhead is therefore set well back and, consequently, so are the windscreen pillars. This gives the 1 Series great all-round visibility without the mini-MPV feel of many small hatches. The way the windscreen pillars impinge on driver visibility in most rivals borders on the unacceptable but the 1 Series is again a welcome breath of fresh air in this regard. The interior features a start button to get things fired up and a clean, minimalist look to the fascia.
The dashboard resembles that of the BMW Z4 and theres dotted around the cabin are twin front airbags and head airbags for all occupants. Factor in Dynamic Stability Control, Dynamic Traction Control, Dynamic Brake Control and the non-dynamic but still worthwhile Electronic Differential Lock and theres also a high level of active safety offered. Many rivals rely on badge equity to justify their premium pricing with no real USP to speak of. BMW has the market in rear wheel drive luxury hatches taped.
The 120d is as things stand- as good as it gets. Value is relative and beauty may be in the eye of the beholder but on a purely objective basis the 120d has no peers.
FACTS AT A GLANCE
CAR: BMW 120d
PRICE: £19,200 £21,150 - on the road
INSURANCE GROUP: 14
CO2 EMISSIONS: 152g/km
PERFORMANCE: 0-60mph 7.7s / Max speed 137mph
FUEL CONSUMPTION: (combined) 49.6mpg
STANDARD SAFETY FEATURES: Twin front, side and head airbags / ABS
WILL IT FIT IN YOUR GARAGE?: Length/Width/Heightmm 4227/1751/1430
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