Quote:
Originally Posted by aesthetect
hmm ill buy that. he said theyre both equally ugly (when the golf is undoubtedly retarded looking), and basically trashed the bmw for not having enough rear leg room or storage space when they didnt even show worthwhile views of the golf's back seat or trunk which appear to be identical. and i doubt the golf interior is up to par with the bimmer
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The Golf does have a lot more room than the 1. There is a clear packaging advantage of transverse FWD setup that was reallized in the original Mini. FR is just not a good setup for a practical economy car, and it only gets worse as BMW likes to push the engine as further back as possible. After all, there is a reason why almost all economy cars in the world are FF. So yeah, as a family hatch, which is the segment that the 1 competes in in Europe, the 1 has plenty to be criticized.
Now these things that hurt the 1 as a family hatch do help it a lot in dynamics, and even Clarkson admitted that he had not had so much fun in a small car since the 80's. But at the end the R32's lap time was actually better than the 1, AND it has more room, while costing considerably less. You have to remember most europeans don't own three cars and a truck like Americans do. The reason that Europeans love hot hatches is because they are affordable, fun and practical all at the same time. And the 1 fails in two out of three, so it got bashed.
Now the story can be quite different in the US since BMW pricing tends to be a lot more competitive here than it is in the UK, (For the R32 price we would probably be able to get a base 135i) and the coupe will not be expected to be practical. So I think the coupe will be a better focused product in the US than the hatch is in Europe.