BMW’s Golf is still very BMW
Clearly, the Portuguese don’t believe in the concept of lowest common denominator when it comes to pegging their motorway speed limits. We’re racing west, into the setting sun, and fading amber light plays across a mountainous landscape of sawtooth peaks, gut-churning drops and a serpentine stretch of dual carriageway. Overloaded Dacias churn up the climbs, unable to hold anything like the 120km/h limit. On the downhill curves, ancient Clios with dampers that no longer damp squirm at the limits of their equally ancient rubber.
The 118i, by contrast, is imperious. Provided you’re carrying a little momentum the 1.5-litre turbocharged triple does a great impression of something far more powerful, hauling the BMW up each slope without fuss. And with gravity on your side you’re left wondering just how fast the 118i could tackle these fiercely three-dimensional curves. Fully double the posted limit? Probably.
The BMW carries its weight low, and – in true, er, Mini style – sticks a wheel (wearing a broad and grippy tyre) right out into each corner of the car. Steering is meaty and direct, with no real straight-ahead slack, and in combination with the uncompromising set-up (the BMW’s shockingly firm after the limo-pliant Gol) – the result is a level of communication and control that quickly builds confidence. A driver’s car, then, despite the heresy of front-wheel drive. In truth you wonder why BMW didn’t make the switch sooner.
Well, what would you do? Say you’re BMW and you’ve been making a hatchback with a rear-drive USP, with all the packaging disadvantages that entails, but research suggests a significant proportion of existing 1-series owners don’t even realise their car is rear-wheel drive – and by staying the way you are platform-sharing opportunities are being missed by the truckload. And if people didn’t notice which axle did the driving in their old 1-series, they certainly noticed that it had less space in the back and a smaller boot than their neighbour’s Golf.
That’s no longer the case. The three boots here are much of a muchness for size, shape and usefulness (although the two Germans have a touch more underfloor storage space than the Focus). And there’s far more rear space than before, although with the body’s high beltline pinching the rear windows and giant C-pillars, it still feels a touch cramped in the back of the BMW, particularly for tall passengers. All three cars are broadly similar for roominess, the Focus a smidge ahead for legroom and the Golf the headroom champ (the Ford’s hope of a win dashed by this particular car’s space-snaing glass roo).
If the Golf’s interior is like a luxury limo decanted into a hatchback, the 1-series is bonsai sports saloon. M Sport spec brings deeply bucketed leather seats and textured trim, lifted by eye-catching patterned ambient lighting. The Golf has its own interior light show, trumping the BMW’s choice of six colours with up to 32 shades to toggle through, depending on spec. The Golf gets digi-dials as standard while basic 1-series use analogue dials, but with the appropriate option pack box ticked the binnacle matches the layout of BMW’s bigger cars with symmetrical digital instruments, although it has just the one main display to the VW’s choice of four. The BMW also adds a crisp head-up display, complete with shift lights. Like the VW, it’s projected directly onto the windscreen, while the Ford’s HUD is beamed onto a transparent strip of plastic.
The 1-series cabin is less impressive than the Golf’s (the map graphics in particular look low-rent compared with the Golf ’s living, breathing OS map) but it’s the best infotainment here. Some mocked BMW’s shotgun approach on the 7-series and 5-series, as it pursued control via voice, gesture, touch and iDrive, but it now looks like a prescient decision. Traditionalists can iDrive, while the iPhone-trained can play on a screen more responsive than the Golf’s.
You can still crank the seat low, as you should be able to in a BMW, and like the Golf, the seats are superbly supportive. And while the ride is by far the firmest here (not least because M Sport spec includes a 10mm suspension drop), the 1-series is perfectly tolerable for daily use.
Has nothing been lost, then? Well, the new car hasn’t the unique character of the old 1-series, nor its balance. But it is an enjoyable hatch to drive, with communicative, adjustable handling. So clearly does the BMW tell you what’s going on at each corner, and so unobtrusively do its chassis systems work, that you always feel on top of it. The Golf is more comfortable. But the 1-series is the one you’ll remember. ⊲
There’s a level of communication and control that quickly builds confidence; it’s a driver’s car