Neat, Not Cheap
by David Finlay (05 Aug 08)

The first thing that struck me about this car is that it's by far the best-looking 1-Series I've yet driven. I wouldn't say it's the most attractive convertible on the market, but to me it's a lot easier on the eye than the hatchback. In particular, those over-large headlight units, which seem so out of place on the regular car, don't dominate the appearance of this one to anything like the same extent.

If you really want the 1-Series Convertible to look its best you should fold the roof down. The roof is a fabric job rather than a metal one, so you can't describe the car as a coupé-convertible (BMW, like Audi, seems to mistrust that increasingly popular piece of technology), but unlike other similar arrangements you don't have to do any unhooking at the start of the process. Just prod a button on the centre console and let the electric motors do the job for you.

As well as looking much better this way - and giving you the open-air motoring experience which of course is the whole point of the exercise - the alfresco version of the 1-Series also offers decent rear visibility. When the roof is up the three-quarter blind spots are large enough to warrant their own currency and voting rights, and you'll never be more thankful for parking sensors when you try to reverse.

Convertibles are famous for being less structurally secure than cars with roofs, but BMW has done well to limit the effects of this. Oh, the driving experience isn't as impressive as it is in the hatchback, and there's a slight amount of jiggling on rougher surfaces, but the car remains an enjoyable tool for whisking along your favourite country roads.

The one thing that really spoiled the experience for me was the gearchange, which was notchy and recalcitrant on the test car. BMW gearchanges have never been the world's best, but they have improved a lot in recent years, yet this one took me back to the bad old days, when it seemed as if the gearbox oil still hadn't warmed up properly even long after it must have done. It's possible that this was an unfortunate quirk of the test car and that most versions are better than this. I certainly hope so.

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