That Don't 1Mpress Me Much

Hurrah! BMW has finally taken a step back from the abyss of bloat, feature creep, and investment-banker-centric dynamics with the introduction of the bargain-priced 1M. The men from Munich have already provided the Bimmer-blogs pictures of the little coupe running down a road with the beloved E30 M3, and for the Roundel-tramp-stamp crowd, the line to place a deposit forms to the left, at your local X3/X5/X6 dealer.

The rest of us needn’t get so excited. Here’s why.

It’s common practice in some quarters to disparage M-cars by comparing their performance to that of the similarly-priced Corvette. We could play that game; a completely base Corvette, at $48,930, will absolutely murder the $47,010 (or thereabouts) 1M in every imaginable performance metric including real-world fuel economy.

In that same “real world”, however, the 1M will be purchased by people who need an occasional back seat and who intend to use the car on a year-’round basis. It’s not really a Corvette competitor, so let’s put it head-to-head against a selection of four-seaters to see how the Munchen Munchkin compares:

If you do expand the possibilities to include two-seaters, the aforementioned Corvette offers performance in an entirely different league while the Nissan 370Z turns in similar numbers for fifteen grand less. Even Porsche can play the game; a base Boxster is $47,600 and is likely to give the 1M fits on smaller road courses.

If the new don’t-call-me-M1 fails, however, it won’t be any of the above choices which delivers the hammer blow. Rather, it will be a showroom neighbor, the 2011 M3. Forget the eight-K price gap. BMW Financial Services has traditionally offered much better lease rates on the Three than the One. Faced with the choice of $950/month 60-month finance for the little turbo 1M or a very similar 36-month lease for the storming V-8 M3, most customers will vote for the one which packs the bigger Cars-and-Coffee punch — and that one is really a Three.