I'm holding out for at least the Tii variant. It hopefully will address the issues that have been mentioned. It is somewhat lighter than the standard 135i (so a lot lighter than the 3) with bigger brakes, oil cooler, nice sport seats, among other things. Hopefully BMW will try to draw out the ludites like me with an old school, pared down, and especially cheaper car for the enthusiast.
The real deal would be a 135D. It would probably smoke just about anything short of the exotics. No plans for that, but they do have the 123D coupe in europe. It's a 200+ hp, high torque 4 banger that can hit almost 150 mph, 0-60in about 7 seconds, and eek out 50+ mpg if your light footed.
That would be a nice car to have. I would take it above all other 1 series offerings.
Tii-
