Defining Performance
by Chris Goffey (23 Dec 05)

BMW UK's then managing director stood with his back to me, staring out of his office window, hands clenched behind his back (a pose he often seemed to adopt when talking to people). "BMW will never," he said, with Churchillian intonations, "go beyond a 1% share of the UK market. It would remove our exclusivity and appeal."

Well that was then, and this is now, with BMW currently on 4.45% of the UK market, and MINI adding another 1.84%. Exclusivity? They're everywhere! And yet the 3-Series ­ on the face of it the German equivalent of a Mondeo - continues to exert an almost magical hold on British buyers.

A few days swanning around in the latest 330d M Sport saloon served merely to ram that message home. Here I must declare an interest ­ I own and run a 323iSE, so I suppose I'm biased. Not so biased, though, that I can't prefer the shape of my car to the angular and to my eye rather ungainly lines of the current 3-Series crop.

This car admittedly looked impressive with its 18" light alloys and ultra low-profile run-flat tyres virtually filling the wheel arches. But what you gain in looks, stance and street cred you lose in road noise and reaction to surface imperfections, exacerbated by the M Sport's suspension tweaks. Personally I cannot believe it's quicker across country and through the bends than standard, but boys will be boys and they must have their flash wheels and tyres.

The overall attributes of the 3-Series are too well known to bear repetition here. The heart of this car is the superb three-litre power unit common to both SE and M Sport models. You can guess ­ just - that it's a diesel on start-up, largely from the idle speed, but the harsh clatter and knock of a cold diesel has been almost completely suppressed. And once on the move I would defy anyone to tell the fuel employed.

That it develops 231bhp is impressive enough - it's the most powerful diesel ever to be fitted to a 3-Series - but it's the stonking torque that defines the car's performance. 500Nm (369lb/ft) in a virtually flat line from 1750rpm to 3000rpm means you can almost feel the car wanting to revolve around its own crankshaft as you open the throttle; such is the surge of acceleration. Given so much torque a six-speed box (short gear lever in the M Sport) seems superfluous - seamless power is available in any gear at almost any speed. In fact, why is no automatic available?

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