BMW details new 1 Series three-door

Bigger, more unique new 1 Series three-door also promises better dynamics and efficiency

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As night follows day, so a cut-down version of BMW’s 1 Series follows the full-strength version.

Though BMW Australia has yet to confirm it will come to Australia, the Bavarian brand’s new 1 Series three-door is now bigger inside and out and more frugal to boot.

For the first time, too, it scores a glasshouse design that lends it a separate character to its five-door sibling and it will also usher in BMW’s first all-wheel drive 1 Series, too.

It has grown 85mm longer, mainly to give BMW’s designers more space to curve a unique design character into its glasshouse, making it look less stumpy looking than its predecessor.

While it’s the same height (1421mm) as the outgoing three-door, the new 1 Series rides on a wheelbase that’s 30mm longer, which combines with the option of two or three seats to add space in the rear.

It also promises to be a more stable drive with crisper handling, being 17mm wider in the body than the old car  games at 1765mm, with the tyres pushed even wider out than that. The front track width has grown 51mm and the rear tyres sit 72mm wider than they did before.

While the old 1 Series was criticised for its inability to take odd-sized loads through its awkward hatch opening, the new car has a slightly wider hatch shape and its luggage capacity has increased by 30 litres to 360mm. There is also a 40:20:40-split folding rear seat that can be dropped flat to boost luggage space up to 1200 litres.

Of far more interest to true petrol-heads, the three-door will also form the basis of the first petrol-engine model from BMW’s new M Performance Automobiles brand.

Either BMW-hot or M-lite, depending on your viewpoint, the M Performance brand made its debut earlier this year via the 5 Series-based tri-turbo M550d xDrive and will follow this up with the M135i in both three- and five-door form.

Powered by a turbocharged, direct-injection, inline 3.0-litre six-cylinder engine, the M135i will scoot to 100km/h in 4.9 seconds, so it’s nobody’s mug. It’s actually two tenths of a second faster to 100km/h with its eight-speed automatic transmission than it is with the six-speed manual, which bodes well for the one-handed all-rounder option.

It’s a familiar motor and has just been seen in the 6 Series GranCoupe, so it should make light work of the 1 Series body. It has 235kW of power at 5800rpm, and its 450Nm torque peak arrives at just 1300rpm.

It’s not just quick to 100km/h either, taking 23.9 seconds to burst across the standing kilometre before topping out at a limited 250km/h, even though it’s 1425kg kerb weight adds 120kg to the base 114i’s figure. BMW uses the lighter DIN figure (most European players have moved away from the EC figure that demands a 75kg occupant and some fuel be included), so be careful in your comparisons.

Some of that weight is a result of its tauter M Sport suspension gear, some comes via a body kit that drops it 10mm lower and stretches it 16mm longer than the stock car. Some of it, too, is found in its meatier brakes and the larger 18-inch rubber, with 225/40 R18 tyres up front and 245/35 boots at the back.

Still, the automatic uses 7.5 litres per 100km on the combined cycle thanks to its Eco-Pro mode (the manual is 0.5L/100km thirstier), which translates to 175 grams of CO2 per kilometre.

But while it’s the fastest, it’s far from the most frugal. That goes to the base diesel model, the 116d, at just 4.3L/100km. Though it’s an unlikely starter for Australian roads, the 116d isn’t the slowest of the three-door models, posting a 10.3-second 0-100km/h figure to go with its 114g/km of CO2.

It shares the same 2.0-litre turbodiesel engine as the stronger, faster 118d and 125d variants (it’s all in the tuning) and all three of them slide below the 5.0L/100km barrier for their combined fuel economy figures.

While the middle-ranking 118d is under consideration for Australia, with it 105kW of power and 320Nm of torque, it’s the thumping big brother that will attract most attention. With 160kW of power, it has the same 450Nm torque figure as the M135i and sprints to 100km/h in 6.5 seconds, even though it returns 4.9L/100km.

The slowest of all is the 114i, with a turbocharged 1.6-litre petrol four-pot offering a paltry 74kW of power. It’s also the lightest of the models, with a 1285kg kerb weight, but even that leaves it limping to 100km/h in 11.3 seconds.

The 118i is a memory for now, with BMW instead sticking with a 116i that shares the 114i’s engine but adds 26kW of power to cut nearly three seconds off the sprint to 100km/h without changing the 5.5L/100km consumption figure.

The range then skips up to the 125i, with its TwinPower 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine, complete with a twin-scroll turbocharger, direct fuel-injection and precise Valvetronic valve control. It’s an engine that delivers 160kW of power (precisely the same number as the 125d) and a 6.4-second sprint to 100km/h, while using another 1.1L/100km of fuel than its 116i sibling. All the three-door 1 Series models will come with the same 52-litre fuel tank.

The range won’t finish here, though, because BMW will bring xDrive all-wheel drive to the 1 Series for the first time in November (in Europe at least), for both the 135i and the 120d. And there looks like there is enough space in the petrol-engined range to re-introduce a 118i or 120i between the 100kW 116i and the 160kW 125i.

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