My biggest kvetch about the BMW 1-Series: price. When you compare the 1-Series to the more practical 3-Series, the cheaper 1 might as well have a bone through its nose and wear a Fine Young Cannibals T-shirt. Still, no one ever lost any money selling BMWs to well-heeled consumers whose desire for status trumps… everything. Given that the majority of the brand’s fan base are insensitive to matters of relative worth– other than new hotness– the drop-top 128i has less of a hill to climb than the rest of the “I’m-not-a-3-Series, not yet an icon” 1ers. So, does it?
The 128i convertible is drop-dead sexy– provided a well dressed fat person flicks your Bic. Although the 1 drips with BMW jewelry and figure-hiding flame surfacing, the car looks as if Bangle’s Boyz loaded a 3-Series picture onto their computer, and then stretched the image vertically. The 128i’s high belt line Bobbleheads its blingmeisters. Still, the design IS unforgettable, in both the positive and negative sense, depending on whose name is on registration.
BMW’s fashioned about three quarters of the 128i convertible’s cabin from high-quality Germanic materials. The other quarter's low-quality shiny polymers come straight from the days when chocolate cereal was not part of a complete breakfast. The driver-oriented dash provides more acceptable nostalgia, while the rubbery switchgear conforms to today’s idea of haute carture. The 128i’s back seat barely possess enough space to accommodate the sorostitutes that will no doubt ride in the back of Daddy’s little girl’s BMW.
The front seats put the ß in scheiße. To say they lack side bolstering is like saying that BMW makes a decent inline six. The sports package's more glove-like chairs rectify the ergonomic deficit, but it’s a bit like cosmetic dentistry. No matter how good the fix, when you see the bill ($1200), you still wish you had better genetics.
In fact, the 128i Convertible mit sport is your dentist’s best friend. I’m not saying the 128i is hard-riding, but the 128i is hard riding. You might even say there isn’t a modern car sold with a more punishing suspension. While BMW might get away with this sadism with the sport-oriented 135i, why punish buyers of the entry-level 128i, sweetpea's pretty little cabrio (redacting pretty)?
The 128i Convertible’s 3.0-liter six-cylinder powerplant is the main, perhaps only event. It sounds like bobbyellabilliefrank, digitally remastered in Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound. There’s a reason BMW uses this engine in the 1-Series, 3-Series, 5-Series, X3, X5, Z4 and the company’s lawn mowers (for all we know). It’s the little engine that could: a smooth, rev-happy jewel that never fails to take food and toys to the good little goys on the other side of the mountain. That said, I also love Snickers bars. Just not in Burma.
The 128i's six-speed automatic transmission makes the worst of this magnificent motor. Clearly,the slushbox was built by an HR worker on Valium. Want to accelerate? Fill out the required paperwork and the transmission will get back to you tomorrow. The buff books peg the 128i’s zero to sixty acceleration (a useful metric if there ever wasn’t one) at about six seconds and change, which puts it just ahead of the $23k Volkswagen GTI.
Listen here hot shoes: the 128i Convertible has a fat, lazy slushbox. If cars lived in a dictatorship, the 128i’s transmission would have to dig its own grave and then lean forward. And once moving, the autobox keeps bringing the hurt. A ’64 GM three-speed is smoother. Still.
The 128i's steering requires both hands and a foot; the 128i stays flat in turns because it has its own gravitational field. Throwing it around bends is like asking pro football player Jared Lorenzen “The Round Mound of Touchdown” to dance ballet and then perform a double bypass while wearing oven mitts. Parking is the only fun to be had here.
Now, the price…
There’s only two ways to think about this. Either the 128i is cheap compared to the 328i convertible (the Armani Exchange School of Thought), or it’s expensive compared to its rivals (the You Couldn’t Pay Me to Endure This Suspension School of Thought). If 128i Convertible buyers fall into the first category, BMW just screwed themselves out of several hundred thousand grand. Even if the 128i brings in loads of newbies, the lost profit from people who would have bought a 3-Series cab will be significant.
What’s German for D’oh! If you want a real “I could’ve had a CPO drop top 645ci V8” moment, consider the fact that the 128i convertible I drove stickered at a staggering $42,575. Talk about a shot to the kidney [grills]. On the other hand, who gives a shit? If you’re a cute forget the ute Bimmer fan who’s got the big bucks, why not pay it and enjoy the 128i Convertible for what it is? Oh wait, it’s not that nice. Right. Never mind.
Nice review. It seems like the 1-series is lose-lose for BMW given the popularity of the 3-series.
1-series has been out in Europe for awhile, no? How have sales panned out over there in terms of cannibalism and the like?
Wow, very late/early posting. 3am here on the west coast.
The only way the 1-series works is the 128i Coupe. It’s the cheapest, lightest BMW you can buy. If you can find a stripper, it’s 29375 MSRP including destination, and it’s still got pretty much everything you need. For some, the $1,200 Sport Package should be worth it. (also $475 extra for any color outside of flat black, white, and red)
So what are the chances that your local BMW dealer will have a 128i manual with only the sport package? Probably zero. BMW’s European Delivery would be the only/best way to get it. (also drops $2k off the price of the car) You deserve a trip to the land of the Autobahn and the Nurburgring, don’t you?
Of course, the most sensible option is to wait for a 135i to depreciate and buy one in 2011. Or perhaps a 335i in 2010? yep, there we go.
I don’t really understand all the 1-series bashing. I mean, of course it’s expensive, it’s a small beamer with a big engine. In Europe, the 1-series is also fitted with smaller in-line fours, competing with the A3-crowd and so on. There’s the 116i, 118i, 120i. Theres the big sixes, and some diesels in between. A small car/big engine configuration will always be as expensive as a big car/small engine. BMW needs a smaller car, the 3-series is as big as the 70’s legendary CSi.
The 1-series coupe is a boy-racer, if there ever were one. It’s competing with the japanese drifting-crowd. It’s also a more stylish statement in the C-segment, competing with the Golf/A3, and also flirting with the lifestyle-crowd, with nameplates as Lexus IS, Audi TT, the Mini, perhaps the Beetle as well. The 3-series has grown too big, too expensive, too refined. It is actually too good a car for BMW, as its benchmarking qualities make a bad reputation for its smaller and less expensive siblings. But are the 3-series and 1-series competing for the same customers? They say about Porsche Boxster/Cayman, that it is only bought by people who could not afford a “real” Porsche, i.e. a 911. But is that true? Doesn’t they just all complete each other, filling in the gaps?
1-series has been out in Europe for awhile, no? How have sales panned out over there in terms of cannibalism and the like?
I don’t know exactly (now figures to support my perception) but I don’t think 3 series sales have suffered so much. Sales of the 3-series are still strong and the 1 series does ok (it operates in the most highly fought segment in Europe and considering the pricing you see an awful lot of them on the road).
I think the market is a little different here as well, as are the engine options on offer like mentioned above. By far the most 3 and 1 series on the roads right now are company leases, with small diesel engines (usually 18d or 20d, both in the 3 series and the 1 series) and not equipped with an overload of options.
In the US, the 1 is only on offer as a coupe or convertible and only with 6 cylinder engines, where in Europe obviously we have the 3 and 5 door hatch as well as a wide array of 4 cylinder petrol and diesel engines. The 3 series Touring is a lot more popular as well.
I think all this means that in Europe the 1 and the 3 both have a different place in the market, at least a lot more than in the US, where they both seem to operate in the same market segment (the 3 used to be the small BMW for ‘eurosnobs’/your kids but now the 1 is exactly the same thing).
What shouldn’t be neglected though is that the 1 series has definitley pushed the sales volume of BMW (lost 3 series sales or not)…and that helps them too.
It will be interesting to see what happens next now the new A4 and C class are out, because the E46 was mainly a strong seller because it put the competition to shame but now Mercedes and Audi have made a step forward in comparison with the E90/91/92. Maybe the cannibalisation will only begin to show as of now…
The 128i’s back seat barely possess enough space to accommodate the sorostitutes that will no doubt ride in the back of Daddy’s little girl’s BMW.
Brilliant!!
But what does haute carture means? I don’t get the joke on haute couture.
You used one of my favorite words in a review on a semi-major website: Sorostitutes. This is second only to Farago’s “Flying Vajajay” in my book.
Brendino and JJ
I believe this car has been in Europe since about 2004. JJ can correct my points here, but over there BMW offers SEVERAL configurations, from a 2.0L basic model to the sequential turbo 330i version we also have here. Plus diesel from the “very efficient” to the “screamingly fast and still pretty efficient”
Plus, every Euro model I’ve ever seen in person has been the 5-door, which I’ve said many times offers something a little more unique compared to a 3-series coupe (it’s more like a mini-3-series-wagon in a tighter package).
Basically, I don’t see it cannibalizing the 3-series in Europe to the degree it will here…since our configurations are all basically 9/10-scale versions of the same thing in the 3-series. This just seems utterly stupid to me from a product planning standpoint. IMO, the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen BMW do, including the first Banglized 7-series a few years ago.
This car simply replaces what the 3 used to be. BMW is a global company and they have many markets that lend themselves to smaller cars.
North Americans would be amazed at how basic many BMWs are in Europe. The last time I was there I noticed more than a few E46’s with manual windows.
I wonder if something is wrong with the test vehicle’s transmission. I drove a 335i automatic about two weeks ago and I thought the transmission was excellent. In sport mode, it downshifted quickly, held shifts when I lifted the throttle suddenly, and shifted at redline. In normal mode, it was smooth and almost imperceptible, but still quick.
I still prefer the manual, but it was a really good automatic.
In Europe, the 1-series is also fitted with smaller in-line fours, competing with the A3-crowd and so on. There’s the 116i, 118i, 120i.
I guess BMW doesn’t want to mess with the premium image in USA, but this car screams for a smaller engine from a price point of view, like you said. We did have a 318 version until I believe the mid, late 90’s… I see plenty of them still tooling around, probably more than I think because the “318” is often replaced with a 325 badge.
In addition to sorostitutes there are “prostitots” too.
Those are 10 year old girls that have parents who let them out of the house dressed like they are very wild 23 year old girls on the prowl for a man. There is NO REASON for a 10 year old to look “sexy” in the mall…
Back to cars for the moment, I’ll take a 1-series over a 3-series any day. Not saying the 3-series isn’t nice, but I like the lighter weight and smaller size of the 1-series. I’d even like it with a turbo diesel four or a very small six (2.0 six).
@ash78
Yes, the 1 series is on sale in Europe since 2004 as a 5-door hatch.
Last year the 3 door hatch came along at the end of last year (together with a mild facelift for the 5-door version and ‘efficientdynamics’ with a start-stop gearbox and other fuel saving technology).
Then the coupe and the convertible were launched simultaneously with their US siblings.
The hatches are available as 116i, 118i, 120i and 130i (so not the twinturbo), as well as 118d, 120d and 123d, the latter being a twinturbo 4 cylinder diesel with European rating of 204 HP)
The coupe is available with the same engines as the US coupe (although the US 128i is called 125i in Europe), as well as the 120d and 123d.
The convertible is the same as the coupe, but also available with the smaller petrol engines, starting from 118i, and not as a 123d…
TexasAg03 wrote… “I wonder if something is wrong with the test vehicle’s transmission. I drove a 335i automatic about two weeks ago and I thought the transmission was excellent.”
Yep, there’s something definitely wrong with the 128i’s automatic… it’s a completely different one than in the 335i! :-)
Yep, there’s something definitely wrong with the 128i’s automatic… it’s a completely different one than in the 335i! :-)
I didn’t know that…
That would certainly explain things.
@TexasAg03:
The 135i/335i both utilize a fast-shifting 6-spd ZF Steptronic. The ’28’s garden variety automatics are sourced from GM.
The ’28’s garden variety automatics are sourced from GM
That REALLY explains things…
The automatic in the 335i is good enough that I would consider it. I would still most likely go with the stick, but that ZF is good.
OT but I have to say I find “sorostitutes” offensive. I have become enured to the house style on TTAC but why be ignorant?
fair review otherwise…
“Still, no one ever lost any money selling BMWs to well-heeled consumers whose desire for status trumps… everything.”
I didn’t even bother reading the rest of the review.
I have a family member who just recently confessed that the family matriarch’s ’06 Nissan Altima is a better drive and more comfortable than her newly-used Bimmer 3. Alas, she admits that, all pros aside, she could not be seen in her town in a Nissan because “it isn’t what successful people drive.”
While this might be saying a lot about her character that I’d rather not bother with (waste of time, really), it better explains to me, in a very 1st-person sort of way, the ideal Bimmer customer.
I first think, “How shallow can people get?,” shortly followed by a quick mental analysis of the Bimmer/luxury market, and conclude that the success of a car really has nothing to do with provided features, efficiency, uniqueness, or performance. The one, most important dominating factor, is name. Perceived value conquers all… and it makes me sad :-(
I agree with Hal. Review the car, not who you think the aspiring owners are. Maybe they are people trading down to a sporty car with good gas mileage, not social climbers trading in their Nissans. Mysogyny and class envy are not relevant.
If cars lived in a dictatorship, the 128i’s transmission would have to dig its own grave and then lean forward.
That is classic! Best TTAC quote yet.
‘sorostitutes’…I knew I should have gone to an American university.
Oh yes, the car is damned ugly in person. A 3-series that’s been Abbott and Costello’d. BMW drops a turd.