If there was any kind of a leading signal of what we can expect from the next generation of premium hatches, the BMW 1-Series Sports Hatch would probably be it. It’s the first of the big German Three to release its take on the segment, and will be so for the next few months before the A3 hits our shores, so for the time being this is the de facto standard. And on the surface, it is really not a bad template to follow.
When I first saw the car, the styling did not do it for me. The features, especially on the front of the car, resemble a sheet of latex being pulled over the body and anchored at the bottom of the front lip. The rear and side profiles are pleasing enough, with subtle lines extending through them, but after spending just two days with the 1-Series I have already become accustom to its brand of looks.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I have been overwhelmed by the design and will be pasting cut outs of our faces onto magazine photos of happy couples with Labradors and start playing house, but it did manage to sway me under 48 hours – stranger things have happened.
I suppose the 1-Series Sport Hatch’s biggest ace up its sleeve is its interior, which for this class is incredibly comfortable. The previous 1-Series (that’s the 1-Series Sport Hatch (3-Door) by the way, since it is still available on BMW’s website) was often slated for having an interior straight from the BMW E36 days, and although this new one has also borrowed its interior from another BMW it feels more like the current generation 5-Series than a premium hatch back.
A cinematic widescreen display sits perched on top of the centre dashboard and gracefully takes commands from the centre console mounted iDrive and direct access buttons. The system is like any other BMW’s but slightly more refined, even that of the 5-Series (the latest BMW that I have driven). Even the PDC rear view camera offers better picture quality than predecessors.
The instrument cluster is straight out of the 5-Series and is a beautiful mix of analogue dials and digital display components, and offers up a huge amount of data on what is going on with the car but never bombards you with it. There are extra bar charts and numbers relating to the EfficientDynamics working in the background which are useful but don’t retract from the more important data like speed.
As far as driving goes, the 1,6-litre turbocharged petrol engine might not look like much on paper (100 kW and 220 Nm torque) but it does feel perky and alive when you put your foot down. There is a definite lack of power in the midrange, and with the 6-speed manual gearbox you will probably end up down shifting a lot to try and find that power, but with the excellent 8-Speed ZF automatic gearbox it was never a noticeable annoyance.
The car also has three modes which are set by a rocker-style button next to the gearlever. Comfort is the equivalent of normal, while Sport does things to the suspension, steering and gearbox and is for when you want to go fast, or feel like you’re going fast. The chassis didn’t inspire the highest degree of confidence in its sporting capabilities and got very bouncy through corners with uneven surfaces so I really wouldn’t push the envelope on this car. But ECO PRO is probably the most rewarding of the three.
In ECO PRO the l/100km bar on the instrument cluster transforms into an optimum driving meter, showing you if you are using your accelerator pedal too liberally, sometimes even prompting you to back off. The estimated range left also takes back seat to a new metric, a kilometres saved number, which tells you how much extra range you have squeezed out of this tank of fuel by simply following the ECO PRO way of driving.
This type of reward based system (showing the direct saving of driving efficiently) appeals to me. It’s like a game where the score is money saved and the entertainment centre is your drive to work.
So all in all the new 1-Series is brilliant! It’s comfortable beyond all expectations, drives well and is not that bad too look at. So we could assume that we are in good hands for this new generation of premium hatch backs. Well yes, but you are going to fork out for that premium part.
While the 116i retails for a very respectful R268,000 in manual (R286,500 for the automatic), the example that I drove had over R140,000 worth of optional extras, meaning its retail price would be north of R420 000. Almost everything on this car is optional, and even if you go for the Packages, you would still need to cumulatively add six of them to get close to this specification level.
All of sudden all the elegant things about the 1-Series Sport Hatch (5-door) have little price tags hanging off them, asking you if you would really pay that for them every time you use them.
But this is the reality of the new premium hatch backs. They will be expensive, and if you have the money they will be comfortable and you will love it. But as always is the case with an update model range, the 1-Series does not appeal to the same market as it did before. It is now more of a 3-Series with less space, and not the gateway BMW for the younger generation.
