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He takes swipes at the design, with no real design analysis... not particluarly good journalism. It would have been a more useful article had he explained why an American magazine is testing a car not availalbe here. May as well be testing a Renault or a Fiat...
From what I've read elsewhere, I seem to recall Euro prices being substantially higher than North America, buy a factor of around 20% currency adjusted. I think part of it is due to smaller markets. Also, the English need the right-hand drive version, which has to drive up costs. A third factor is the greater variety of models in Europe, what with a variety of deisel engine, small gas engine to duck engine capacity taxes, and then the big engines that we get.
In Canadian $$ the 335i starts at $49,000, the 328i is $41,000 and we have a 320i at $35,600 (not available in the US). I would expect a base 2er (223i, lets say) to come in at around $32,000, then a well equipped 228i at about $38,000 and a 235i M Sport at about $45,000. Any higher than that and they'd be priced out of the market. An Audi A3 or Mercedes B200 (also not yet in the US, me thinks) both come with good equipment, around 200hp and turbo 4-bangers for under $35,000. Even if the 2er is really special, the market won't have the patience to find out if the pricing far exceeds the competition.
I'll let someone else convert that to $US...
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