JetBlack5OC

BMW 135i
Beemed back to the wild days of youth


Jeremy Clarkson, from Top Gear.

"The fact of the matter is this. The 135 coup? is the best car BMW makes. I have no hesitation at all, then, in giving this long-awaited return to form the rare accolade of five stars.

Sadly, since then, the 3-series has grown into middle age. It?s become fatter and bigger and slower. Deep down, a modern 3-series is still balanced and wondrous, but the excitement, the fizz, the thrill of those early cars is gone. Buried under a ton and a half of technology and kit.

Of course, because the 3-series became so enormous, BMW was able to launch the 1-series beneath it in the lineup. And that would have been fine but unfortunately it was styled by the same chap who did Corporal Jones?s butcher?s van in Dad?s Army. Even Queen Victoria would call it old-fashioned, with its sit-up-and-beg stance, its almost vertical windscreen and those idiotic swoops on the flanks.

Now, though, BMW has given its baby hatchback a boot to create what it calls the coup?, and frankly that looks like a recipe for even more calamity and disaster. Booted hatchbacks never work. You need only look at what happened when VW turned the Golf into the Jetta to know I?m right.

And then you have only to look at the 1-series coup? to know I?m wrong. It is by no stretch of the imagination a pretty car. But neither is it offensive. Which means it has exactly the same non-styling-driven appeal of the early 1980s 323i.

What?s more, the version I tested came with a big 3 litre twin-turbo six under the bonnet. That?s 306bhp, and that?s good too.

Step inside and it gets better."



Link:
http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_...icle3103294.ece

westcoast550

I'm not surprised.......... the new Pocket Rocket

JetBlack5OC

Its a little surprising coming from Clarkson, he normally hates on BMW's.

But I agree the 135i is Pocket Rocket, the true 3-series successor.

sapkan

He does not know what he is talking about! The 135i has no sequential turbos but two same size units. The 35 part must have confused him thinking of the diesel Hahaha what a muppet

Håkon

Oh really? The turbos is not sequential on the 135i/335i/535i? Its a regular BI-turbo?

BetterMakeWay

Indeed they are not. One turbo for each 3 cyl. The turbos are the same, not sequential (one small and a bigger one as foun din the 35d). IMO as pure philosophy the sequential is the better setup but BMW engineers would have trully created a car better than the M3 if opted for sequential. THey added two little turbos only to give the car aprox 30 more hp from the NA unit. Obviusly it could have been more and the tuners extract much more from it but with a sauential probably it would have been too much for the marketing guys at bmw.