Quote:
Originally Posted by Devon K
Just because a company has done something one way for decades doesn't mean it should never consider something different (vis. Porsche going from air- to water-cooled engines).
Anyway, you seem to deliberately avoiding my main point; I was not saying that the G37 or the 911 were direct competition for the 1 series. The fact is that even in the ultra-practical (and ultra-ugly) hatchback style, the rear seats in a 1 series are useless for anyone with limbs. This is a function (as many reviewers have noted) of the rear-wheel drive layout and BMW's mid-forward engine placement to attain a 50/50 weight distribution.
To reiterate, a sedan-like look would be an acceptable tradeoff if the back seats could be made usable that way, but as all the reviewers have pointed out, they clearly are not, so why provide all that useless headroom in the back? Instead, cater to the obvious market for this car - singles and couples after a true sports coupe - and give it a more distinctive coupe-like look that says "performance" ( the rendering on the top of this page) rather than Mazda 3-style "grocery-getter" as seems the case in these photos. BMW would benefit by following the direction taken by Porsche and Infiniti (and many others) and applying it to this sports coupe, to give us a much more visually appealing design with no loss of real-world functionality.
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Have you sat in the back of a 1 series or looked at forums such as
http://www.babybmw.net/ ?
You would not want a 6 footer behind a 6 footer for too long but they are fine for most people IMHO...you can put the front passenger seat forward if you need more legroom in the back !