BMW M340i xdrive Touring

Practical and good to drive? The M340i has both bases covered

‘It confidently occupies the space between “regular” 3-series BMWS and the M variant’

IT WAS, I’LL CONFESS, PURELY FOR practical reasons that I wanted to borrow editor Gallagher’s grey estate car. It’d been quite some time since a sub-proper-m BMW had floated my boat, but at least our 340i had enough room to carry one – an inflatable kayak, to be precise – which immediately gave it an advantage over the GR Supra I was running at the time.

So that’s how, last October, I found myself loading up our 3-series Touring with holiday gubbins and settling into its thoroughly agreeable cabin. If I enjoyed nothing else about the car over the next week, I thought to myself, at least it had that interior going for it: comfortable, well appointed, far from gloomy thanks to the optional Fiona Red leather, and extra airy because of the also-optional panoramic sunroof. Very nice.

But as the miles started ticking along, I began to notice something I hadn’t expected: I was enjoying the way the M340i drove, too. In fact, I was enjoying this 1805kg estate car more than the two-seater, half-bmw sports coupe that I’d temporarily traded for it. That sounds completely the wrong way round, I know, but the 3-series had a better ride and a slicker automatic gearbox, produced enough extra power from its version of the B58 straight-six (369bhp to the Supra’s 335) to offset its additional 310kg, and felt better composed under braking and less edgy when pushed. All this, and the extra practicality, for, erm, £2585 less.

By the time I handed back the M340i some 1100 miles later, I was converted. It may not be a pure sporting model, but it confidently occupies the space between the ‘regular’ 3-series BMWS and the thoroughbred M variant. Able to do the everyday without feeling remotely compromised, it’s also capable of rewarding, rather than feeling reluctant, when you ask it to show you a good time.

In this respect it brought to mind the E90 335i models introduced in the mid-noughties, which for good reason were evo’s default ‘ideal compromise’ recommendation for the entire length of their production run and beyond. Since then, most cars attempting to fulfil a similar brief – think Audi’s S models, some second-tier AMGS and even BMW’S own efforts – have fallen a bit flat, so it’s great to discover that BMW is back showing how it should be done.

Date acquired October 2020 Total mileage 7215 Mileage this month 147 Costs this month £0 mpg this month 33.9