Buying a book to read on holiday is very much like buying a car. There’s a huge and bewildering choice and you are torn about what it is, exactly, that you want. If you are a man, you will know to avoid books called Tractors in the Ukraine and Appleblossom because it’ll be a plotless churn through the life of some dizzy bint who has lost her hat. You will not enjoy reading it and other people on the beach will laugh at you.
I like the BMW 135i very much. It has no styling and no big USP. It’s just some car. But it’s the most faithful BMW of them all. Simple. Six-cylinder engine up front. Rear drive. It’s built for the road. It is The Road.
That’s why I was quite looking forward to trying the new BMW X1. There are a lot of so-called crossover quasi-off-road, urban SUV cars around at the moment and none of them is really any good. They offer no more space than a normal hatchback and they are no more rugged, but they cost more to buy, they use more fuel and — with the exception of the Ford Kuga — they are all preposterously ugly.
I felt BMW might be able to pull off a bit of a winner, then. It had learnt some lessons with the woeful X3 and it really has got styling worked out these days. Plus, BMWs are almost always better to drive than any of the cars with which they compete.
Sadly, I was to be disappointed. First of all, the X1 looks like a Hyundai that’s been subjected to a thousand years of wind erosion. It’s dreary. And it’s much the same story on the inside, where you are greeted with lots of extremely scratchy plastic and almost no equipment at all. You want a built-in sat nav system? Well, tough.
A friend of mine, who runs the car I drove, says that the wiring loom is cheap as well. Quite how he’s determined this, I have no idea, but there you are. It’s cheap to look at, cheap to sit in and cheap to touch. But it’s not even slightly cheap to buy.
No matter, you might think. It’ll be a stormer on the road. Well, yes, it might be if you could buy it with a creamy six-cylinder petrol engine. But you can’t. Instead, sir can have it with any engine he likes, so long as it’s a diesel. Normally, BMW diesels are rather good, but the 2-litre version fitted to the X1 is not. It sounds like a dump truck when you start it up, and any request from the helm for more speed is met with a recalcitrant, “You want to do what?”
It’s very uncomfortable as well. The ride is much too rigid and the seats are very nearly as firm as those fitted to a Ford Galaxy. Which means they are hard enough to shape diamonds. That’s nice if you actually want to shape diamonds, but if you just want a comfy place to sit while you go home, the X1 won’t do.
Off-road work? Well, yes, there is a four-wheel-drive version, which should be all right on farm tracks and the like, but the car I drove was fitted with something called sDrive. That sounds exciting. It sounds like the sort of system Captain Scarlet would have used to fight the Mysterons. But no. For some extraordinary reason, sDrive means rear-wheel drive.
Now I like rear-wheel drive. Rear-wheel drive makes a car feel better balanced than front-wheel drive, or even four-wheel drive. It’s right that the front wheels do the steering and those at the rear the propulsion. It’s why BMWs always feel so proper. But I can’t see the point of such a system in a tall car with the engine from a canal boat under the bonnet.
It robs space, adds cost and means that if we get another snowy winter, you won’t even get out of your drive. I fear the marketing men have insisted this car has rear drive even though it makes no sense at all. The whole package doesn’t, if I’m honest.
If it were a book, it would have no plot and a stupid cover and it would fall to pieces in the sun. But it isn’t a book. And neither is it a car. It’s rubbish.
BMW X1 sDrive20d SE
Engine 1995cc, four cylinders
Power 175bhp @ 4000rpm
Torque 258 lb ft @ 1750rpm
Transmission Six-speed manual
Acceleration 0-62mph: 8.1sec
Top Speed 127mph
Fuel / CO2 53.3mpg / 139g/km
Road Tax Band E (£110 for first year)
Price £24,905
Release date On sale now
Source: Times Online
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