You mention that BMW is selling out by having people like your friend, who normally drives pickups and can’t tell the difference in driving a 3-series and an Elantra, lusting after your BMW.

Are you kidding me? You’re elitist enough to insist that BMW, who used to make a lauded premium product, used to be appreciable as a luxury product. Now, however, you seem miffed by the fact that a common man seems to know that BMW makes a great car. You appear to be less upset by the actual 1-series than the fact that people can actually afford something like the 1- or 3-series. I thought you liked BMWs for their driving prowess. Why do you seem to resent the fact that their “image” is more commonplace, now? Your snobbery belies your “appreciation” of a true car.

It has been f’ing 40 here in RI. Ask RF.

And like you had it so hard driving to 619, where is was, undoubtedly, 60x degrees.

Oh! The Bimmer – yeah – well they did it right in the 80’s and 90’s. After that, it’s all lease, devaluate, sell and make $ on the margin created by the 1990’s brand-building. Thanks, RWR. Sorry WJC: had nothing to do with you. Munich, look forward, the tii is so – Yikes – 40 years ago!

I have to say, the downshifting-is-forward approach (also found on manumatic Mazdas) actually makes more sense to me; if you’re braking and downshifting, conceptually you don’t have to do work to push the stick forward, and if you’re accelerating and upshifting, same thing applies backwards. It’s mostly a matter of taste, though.

The paddles neeing to be pushed forward, however, that is just asinine. There’s no good reason for that, except for minimizing the number of downshifts that a driver does themselves (to reduce warranty repairs, perhaps?)

It’s clear Jonny had his hands full getting any life out of this ride, and that’s inexcusable for a 45K car.

While 1,600 words might be a tad overkill for the average editorial/review/etc. how about considering a 1,000-word limit, so –especially in the case of the always-subjective car review– the writer can better express him/herself.

If Nintendo can offer this sort of option on sub-$100 consoles, surely huge auto manufacturers can do the same.

Great ideea. I love it, and not only that but there are dozens of things that I would like to be able to customize.

It will never happen in US. What if some yahoo sets it’s paddle shifters up as his heart desires and then gets into an accident because the dumb way he set it up did not really work that great on the road. The yahoo ends up in the ER and then sues the heck out of BMW. I’ll bet you he’d win without problems. Too many lawyers, too little common sense for something like that to become a reality in this country.

granted, and I actually didn’t have much a difficult time with the faux-stick (those frigging paddles, though…) — but my point is… get the stick.

It’s how race cars (champ car) have always done it. It doesn’t sound right in descriptive text, but one should think of pushing forward to downshift and pulling back to upshift.

I hope they sell a ton of them. That way I can pick up a “babied” example for under 10k and flog the thing out on the track in a few years.

This speaks volumes as to what BMW/Audi et al are selling. They’re no longer producing european vehicles with great driving dynamics at a premium price. They’re in the business of producing vehicles, available at a lower price point, that are now available to a larger demographic than ever before.

People who drive an Accord or a VW (or a Silverado, apparently) who covet the luxury nameplate now have the option to own their own piece of the luxury image. Those people will tend to focus on that, rather than the irony that their being able to afford this “image” comes at the cost of the image’s exclusivity.

So, in that respect, the 1 series should get 5 stars.

Believe it or not, shooting the pics is harder (for me) than the writing. But, I’m getting better.

I love the pics you took.

Excellent idea that I’ve never personally thought of or read. But now that you’ve suggested it, it seems obvious.

The only negative I can think of is that they couldn’t then label the paddles, and people might have to read the manual to learn how to program the things.

Do I like this one or the next one. Sort of like asking do you like the blue one or the red one. They are really close in equipment and price but BMW is offering more choice to the customer. You and your friend can have the very same 3-series or you can go the path less travelled and pice the 1-series and some options.

I really like the 1-series. I like the 3-series too but would likely buy the one series.

At least BMW isn’t going the American car maker route and trying to sell us the 3-series in 5 different (but very much the same) versions with different badges and names.

This is the BMW 3-series. This is the Mini-Grande. This is the Bavarian Special. This is the Deutche Träumerisch. This is the Europäischer Zoom. Yes, I suppose they are really the same car and it is true that 100% of the parts are the same but as you can see the wheel design and the color palates are specially chosen for each customer. Oh, and the prices range from $36K to $80K for the special Bavarian black. This black is a deeper black that is found on the Deutche version with is only 99% black.

I’m also curious about the steering; my S2000 has electric power steering and I think it has about the best steering compromise (between hard-to-steer no-power cars and overly-boosted systems) of any car I’ve driven. OTOH, steering feel also has a great deal to do with chassis compliance, front end geometry and tires.

I was surprised that there wasn’t more reference to the 3 vs 1 in Jonny’s review. The 3 has been pretty well pumped up in the press (rightfully, in my book), so even though the 1 is heavier than we might have liked, I would have expected a better review from a driving perspective. It’s possible that Jonny doesn’t like BMW’s, and that’s ok as well.

Finally, I wonder about the continued quest for power. My 335 racks up incredible numbers and is really fun on the track, but in everyday driving I rarely use more acceleration than what my ‘01, 187 hp 325 could dish out. 0-60 in seven seconds is faster than I can usually use getting on the freeway, as I’m often stuck behind someone who doesn’t realize that pressure on the right pedal actually will cause the car to increase velocity more quickly. This is particularly annoying when entering the freeway behind an AMG Mercedes driven by someone who just should have bought a Cadillac and been done with it…

G37 w/sunroof and a family vacation, please. Thanks.