Last summer, while you were on holiday, I was in the high desert of California
tearing around a racetrack in a selection of powerful and exotic cars.
Each night I’d get to the bar in the hotel and relive some of the better
moments from my day. The time when the Dodge Viper stuck a wheel on the
gravel and made earthquake noises as I wrestled to regain control. The time
when I executed a perfect power slide in a Corvette Z06. The time when I hit
the ton in Ariel’s little Atom.
And then, the next morning, there’d be an all new selection of cars to drive,
and that night an all new selection of he-man tittle-tattle. Then one day I
arrived at the track to find, sitting in the early morning desert sunshine,
a BMW Z4-M.
Oh dear. This was a bit like sending a food critic to the best restaurant in
the world and presenting him with a Big Mac. It looked all wrong, parked
among the Vipers and the Ferraris and the hyper-tuned Mustangs. It looked
boring and grey. A Liberal Democrat in a sea of Monster Raving Loonies.
With a limp heart and not much enthusiasm I eased out onto the track and, with
my mind in neutral, set off to slither about for the cameras.
The thing is, though, that after a short while it became screamingly obvious
that despite the girl-next-door looks and the miserable 3.2 litres of
homo-power, this car was head and shoulders above everything else I’d driven
out there.
Where a Viper or a ’Vette shouts and waves its arms about, the little Beemer
just gets on with the job of going fast and telegraphing messages to the
seat of your pants and your fingertips, instantly and with no ambiguity at
all. Out there in the desert, it was a sniper’s rifle in a field of
howitzers and mortars.
We see this with a lot of BMWs. You may not like the people who drive them.
You may not like the styling. You may not like the way they supported the
Nazi war machine or what they did to Rover. You may have a million reasons
why you would never buy such a thing — I know I have — but the simple truth
remains: when it comes to the business of driving, they really are very good
indeed.
Lots of cars, for instance, are fitted with antilock brakes, but the system
fitted to a BMW is just better. It only cuts in when you are in real
trouble, and not — as is usually the case with modern cars — far too
prematurely.
And then there are the brakes themselves. We’ve often wondered on Top Gear why
BMWs always set such fast lap times round our track. You look at the power.
You look at the weight. And you can’t really see how it got round so
quickly. The Stig always has the same answer. “It’s the brakes,” he says. In
Martian.
Because they’re so good, and because the ABS doesn’t stumble into the equation
when it’s not wanted, you can hit the middle pedal later than you would in
any other car. And when you are against the clock, that makes a huge
difference.
I would have to say though that in recent years some of the handling fizz has
gone. A modern 3-series, for instance, is nowhere near as electrifying as a
3-series from, say, 1984. But that said it’s also less dangerous. You get a
small hint of understeer to let you know that maybe you’re going a bit too
quickly, and then a little yellow light on the dash to say that underneath
it all the traction control system is working its magic on the rear end. In
an old Beemer you were still grinning from ear to ear, completely oblivious
to any danger, when you hit the tree.
And then of course we get to BMW’s engines. The V10 in the M5. The straight
six in the M3. And — whisper it — their big diesel. Each has a remarkable
knack of blending the need for speed with the peculiar need western man has
developed for saving the sky.
Yes, of course, the 1-series is a ghastly little car with very little interior
space, a boot the size of a matchbox and bread-van styling, but to drive
it’s lovely. And it’s the same story with the 7-series, and even the Z4 hard
top, which beneath that wart of a rear end is a honey. In fact, the only car
in the whole BMW range that completely fails to float my boat is the
3-series.
Stung by criticism of the more avant-garde styling seen on other models, BMW
took a step back with this car and ended up with 14ft of automotive
wallpaper. It’s just a bonnet, a cockpit and a boot. And the last one I
drove was more dreary than shopping for bathroom cleaning products.
I really wasn’t holding out much hope, therefore, for its coupé sister, the
335i.
As usual BMW claims that it’s an all-new car and that every panel is different
from the saloon’s. But it still looks dull. You’d only really want to get
inside it if you were being chased by an armed gang from Shining Path.
And then, when you did get inside, you’d want to get right back out again. In
other coupés, from say, Alfa Romeo and Audi, you get all sorts of fancy bits
and bobs, but not in the Beemer. Here you get exactly the same dash that you
find in the saloon. It’s as dull and as featureless as the inside of a
Cheeky Girl’s head.
At first glance, then, I could not — and would not — bring myself to buy this
car. And certainly not for £33,420, which is a damn sight more than you’re
asked to pay for a Mazda RX-8.
Yes, the rear seats in the BMW are as big as a sofa, and yes, the days when
BMW made you pay extra for windows are gone. But even so, £33,420 for a car
that doesn’t even look as good as a Hyundai? You’d have to be mad.
And there’s more to worry about, because although it says 335 on the back it
doesn’t have a 3.5 litre engine. What you get instead is a 3 litre straight
six, which is force-fed its diet of air by two small turbochargers.
On paper this sounds fine. Because they’re small, they don’t take an age to
reach operating speed, which means there’s no turbo lag.
But because each one is feeding only three cylinders, you still have loads of
power and loads of torque.
The worry is that BMW may have fallen into the same trap as Volkswagen, which
tried a similar two-stage system on the Golf GT I reviewed recently. That
didn’t work at all. It was horrid and jerky and pointless.
In the BMW, though, there are no problems at all. If you really, really
concentrate you still cannot tell it’s turbocharged. Put your foot down and
immediately there’s a meaty, almost diesel-esque shove in the back. But
where a diesel would be out of puff after a moment or two, the Beemer just
keeps on accelerating in a wall of subdued fury — for about nine and a half
weeks.
This engine is little short of a masterpiece. There’s so much low-down grunt
that even the BMW traction control system — a good one normally — is
regularly woken from its electronic slumber by the wave of torque.
And of course it’s all fitted to a perfectly balanced chassis with the usual
array of excellent steering, fine brakes and a nicely chosen balance between
comfort and handling.
As a driver’s car, then, this is yet another winner. But I still wouldn’t buy
one.
You need to think of it as a painting by the world’s greatest artist. Yes, the
brush strokes are magnificent. Yes, the texture is superb. Yes, the
perspective is world class and the detailing is better than you’d get from
Leonardo.
But what he’s actually painted in this case is big dog turd.
Vital statistics
Model BMW 335i SE Coupé
Engine 2979cc, six cylinders
Power 306bhp @ 5800rpm
Torque 295 lb ft @ 1300rpm
Transmission Six-speed manual
Fuel 29.7mpg (combined cycle)
CO2 228g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 5.5sec
Top speed 155mph
Price £33,420
Rating Three stars (out of five)
Verdict Nice motor, shame about the car
