UK Car News review - w/ TiAG video

[joelk]

"if you fancy losing your license in a hurry go for the 135i ..."

some good moving shots of a TiAG and Le Mans 1er Coupe. not much substance though positive marks for the 135i.

http://www.ukcarnews.com/roadtest.php?show=66

edit: jmo but that sedona red in the video looks pretty good too... oh and it's a non-ring test drive

[atr_hugo]

Nice find Joel! Interesting that they called the 123d the 'pick of the range'.

[darknightohio]

Great find, good review. The video was well made.

[C_Topher]

The video is great to see the car in motion off of the Goetling (sp?) track and in a normal street driving situation. The interior video made the steering wheel look pretty thick.

[DimaGt]

Good review by older generation.... Good to hear him say that no problems with sticky gearbox in 135i!!!

[elusiveguy]

Thanks for the vid. :smile:

[Nixon]

Originally Posted by atr_hugo

Nice find Joel! Interesting that they called the 123d the 'pick of the range'.

I would bet that the 123d will sell much more in Europe than the 135 will. It will be considered the "just right" combination between economy and performance that many folks are looking for these days.

Sure the 135i is blistering fast. But to keep it in perspective, just 10 years ago buying a top-of-the-line BMW 328i got you a car that did 0-60 in almost exactly the same time as the 123d. If you were thrilled with the performance of a 328i back then, you would have been doubly thrilled to get the same 0-60 while getting 75% better gas mileage. (If you could have chosen a 123d back then.)

Going just back to 2006, the 330i shaves only about half a second off of 0-60 compared to the 123d.

By objective standards, the 123d is one heck of a great car. Throw in some chip tuning and it gets even more exciting. 0-60 in around the same ~6.5 seconds as a 330i while getting 75% better mpg? That's nuts. If BMW had NOT twin-turbo'd their top of the line 6-cyl engine, the big topic of this board would be whether or not a chipped 123d could accelerate as fast as a stock 130i NA coupe. (While still getting 75% better gas mileage...)

What a difference those two tiny turbos make to the 135i. It makes a perfectly respectable and solid performing 123d seem like so much less in it's shadow.

[Fox323]

Yes, the diesels have a good performance and gas mileage but in germany you have to pay more taxes for diesel so you only save money when you drive a lot and save a lot of gas. And still the diesel sounds shitty and is kind of rougher. So whats missing in europe for the 1 series coupe? A 120i or a 125i or a 128i which you get in USA. We only geht the 135i, thats sooooooo sad A little 6inline with ~200hp would be perfect!

[aesthetect]

^man you and i need to switch locations

[Genericuser1]

That blue loosk really good in natural lighting.