BMW's (lusty) 130i M Sport specifications
Model:
BMW 130i M Sport
Price:
£26 515 (R285 000), SE £24 745 (R265 500).
Engine:
2996cc, six cylinders, 24 valves, 195kW at 6600rpm, 315Nm at 2750rpm
Transmission:
Six-speed gearbox, rear-wheel drive
Performance:
250km/h, 0-100 in 6.0sec, 9.25 litres/100km official average.
It was 19 years ago. Estoril racetrack in Portugal, a test day to try out Continental tyres. And the star of the show? BMW's original and then-new M3 - a boxy little two-door sedan with a crisp-edged, manic, four-cylinder, 2.3-litre engine and the sort of steering and handling that made you wonder why all cars couldn't feel like this.
Lap after lap I blazed round, having a fantastic time in this easiest, most forgiving and most engrossing of souped-up family cars.
This is what can make rear-wheel drive so good. Some car-nuts take the view that rear-wheel drive is always better than front-wheel drive, that it's heresy to suggest otherwise.
That's not true but that fabulous M3, with its perfect car-driver communication and complete dynamic transparency, was those car-nuts' best argument.
No electronics, no rubbery interfaces, no tactile anaesthesia - just the car and you.
No M3 has been so engaging since, for all their greater power. Neither has any M3 ridden so smoothly while serving up such joy. So the idea of the BMW 130i M Sport creates instant bleeps on that old-M3 radar. The 1 Series is BMW's smallest car so it should be as agile as that first M3.
This, however, is the Noughties and not the Eighties, so naturally the new car weighs more than the old one thanks to its stronger structure and ample safety kit, which in turn means it needs more engine to do the same job.
So, like the M3 moels that replaced the original, the 130i has a six-cylinder engine, the same unit that powers other 30i-suffixed BMWs - 330i, 530i and 730i - so the results are likely to be spectacular in a 1 Series - especially as it has an extra five kilowatts (making 198) thanks to modifications to the intake and exhaust systems.
It's a light engine, too, with a magnesium block, and it features BMW's clever Valvetronic technology that has no throttle but instead controls engine speed by altering have far the inlet valves open, thus regulating the engine's air supply.
Plenty of electronics there but, far from adding a delay to the engine's response, it makes the three-litre unit almost supernaturally responsive.
Racy howl
Its deep, straight-six burble has a lovely crispy, crunchy edge, and when you accelerate hard a valve in the rear silencer opens to release a racy howl.
You feel just what an eager machine this is the instant you move off. It's almost violent, actually. Having been pinned back in your seat after what was meant to be a gentle getaway, you then make a hash of the first-to-second gear change because the actions of both accelerator and clutch are so sudden.
You get used to it before long, though, and it's quickly clear that this is a very rapid car. No compact-ish hatchback has more power and it's delivered with a continuous, insistent push right across the engine's speed range. Overtaking? Clean, confident.
How big is this push, then? Six seconds of accelerative violence will see you at 100km/h but this is one of those cars that don't encourage you to extract the last drop of power. You always know there's plenty left in the reservoir.
You can stay in a high gear and still gain speed quickly, or you can give the engine its head. Your choice.
Firmly planted
But this is a fairly small car with rear-wheel drive and more power than some would deem sensible - isn't it a slithering liability if the road turns wet or bumpy?
Not at all. The 130i M Sport feels firmly planted on the road and its dynamic stability control system (DSC+) reins in any power-induced waywardness so subtly that you hardly know it's happening.
This stability system even includes a hill-start helper that keeps pressure in the brakes to stop you rolling back, periodically wipes the brake pads against the discs to dry them when it's raining and applies "priming" anticipatory pressure to the hydraulics if the driver suddenly lifts foot from accelerator.
Choppy ride
Two things that deprive the 130i M Sport of the hoped-for old-M3 feeling are, oddly, two things that today's sporty-car fans might regard as plus points.
- If they haven't driven an original M3, they might not mind the M Sport's over-firm, choppy ride on back roads. They'll just think it confirms the M Sport's performance credentials.
- They might like the steering, even though I don't. I've always found 1 Series' steering to be oddly viscous, with surprising resistance when returning to the straight-ahead position.
My test 130i came with active steering, a £925 (R10 000) extra, already experienced on the the 3 and 5 Series but new to the 1 and available only with this engine.
It uses an epicyclic gear system on the steering column to accelerate response at low speeds, levelling off to normality out on the open road.
It certainly makes the 130i an ultra-agile town companion and the change in steering response with speed is more progressive than in BMW's first such systems, but it exaggerates that viscous feeling.
You get used to it but the old-M3 tactile pleasure is lacking. And now a whole generation of drivers is growing up without knowing true steering feel and the intimacy with the road that it brings.
Pace, tautness, immediacy
You'll still enjoy the 130i M Sport, however, because its pace, its tautness and its immediacy make up for its shortcomings. You'd find excuses to take it for a drive, which also brings the advantage of not having to look at it.
Deeper front and rear valances, hefty 18" rims and ridges on the door sills mark this 130i out as an M Sport, but it's an ugly thing, with chaotic curves up front and a side view that seems to have sagged in the sun.
Rear passenger space is tight and so is the boot but it's undeniably well made and expensively trimmed. You can even get the hang of the one-knob iDrive control if you persevere.
The 130i is not the hoped-for reprise of the original M3, then, but it is a unique experience, a Golf-sized hatchback with rear-wheel drive and a lusty, straight-six engine.
The world of driver-pleasing cars would be the poorer without it. - The Independent, London