Punchy looking little fighter, isn’t it? And yet, BMW’s new 2 Series Coupe might well be BMW’s least controversial-looking car for a long while. It’s lumpy and bumpy from some angles. Downright squat and hunkered in others. But overall, it’s traditional BMW.
No beavertooth grilles. Just a short front overhang, some muscular shoulders, and a stern face. BMW’s clearly quite proud of it: this one’s painted aubergine purple.
Mr Eggplant here is the new M240i, which gets a 369bhp wallop courtesy of a turbocharged 3.0-litre straight-six petrol engine. That’s right, BMW isn’t giving up on its big-sixes just yet.
This is indeed the magnificent engine from the M440i, hooked up to the equally superb eight-speed automatic gearbox (there’s no manual 2 Series any more, folks) and powering all four tyres through BMW’s rear-axle biased xDrive all-wheel-drive system.
Choose launch control and you’ll go from 0-100kph in 4.3 seconds and all the way to a limited top speed 250kph. We’ve just checked and that makes this new M240i quicker than the old V8 M3.
BMW even reckons it’s slashed lift by a massive fifty per cent thanks to active aero devices. And if handling isn’t your bag, but shopping is, then good news for you too: the boot’s grown 20 litres and is easier to load.
Inside, it seems BMW has sort of stopped bothering to design new interiors. Seriously, it’s ruddy identical to a 3 Series (or 4 Series, or 8 Series).
You get the 12.3in iDrive screen and a 10.2in cockpit display, a thick steering wheel with some paddleshifters, lots of proper buttons instead of useless touch-sensitive nonsense, and all the usual BMW tech that can self-drive the car in stop-start traffic, seek parking or yummy lunch on the sat-nav, annoy the heck out of you with voice control and deploy your smartphone as the car’s key.
Now, judging by the latest 3 and 4 Series, the New Two is going to be quite handy to drive. The M240i will probably make a decent noise too. Prices in the UK kick off at £35k (RM200k) for a 220i, and the M240i is just under £46,000 (RM265k).
But none of that matters today, does it? Today is about one question. Have we, Internet, got ourselves A Good Looking New BMW?
