Quote:
Originally Posted by porsche4life
The 1M is being likened to the original M3....
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I surprised from this rating that was from the motortrend best 11 drivers car on this board:
10. BMW 1 SERIES M COUPE
M3's Kid Brother Lacks That Certain Something
When I was 10 years old, I asked my folks for a RATT cassette. My mother said no, arguing that the hair rock masters are, "so stupid they can't even spell their name right." I'm not saying BMW is stupid, but I am saying the name 1 Series M Coupe ranks slightly above Z4 sDrive35is in terms of utter sexlessness. Remember when cars were called Roadmaster and Superfast Coupe? What does this have to do with Best Driver's Car? Not much, though if BMW can't even get the name right, where else did it pull punches?
Front-end bite, for one. The sharply orange Bimmer tested out with the highest degree of understeer of our group. It just plowed. But don't take my word for it. Noted Randy, "Between you and me, I hate it. It won't turn. It's almost like it was built by safety engineers. But only until you get on the power, and then, getting on the power, it's not really good at putting the power down, either. I'm just not impressed with this car. I like the M3 so much that I find the 1M to be very, very disappointing, though the M3 understeers too much, too." Harsh words indeed, but that's on the track. The real world tells a different story.
Even with the (relatively) poor steering, the 1M is fun to toss around, because when you do hammer down, the back end is all too eager to break free. I'm not very good at drifting, but even I was able to make the little BMW's rear end slide about. "Any complaints from the racetrack are nonexistent on the street, where it sounds great, runs out well, and feels nimble and playful in curves," said associate editor Rory Jurnecka. The BMW is the second-least-expensive car here, a (relatively) paltry $3000 more than the Ford Boss 302. Lago added, "It's a fun-size M3 that's just as fast and costs far less."
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Still, there was something half-baked, not fully formed about the smallest current M Division product. Compared with the other contenders, the 1M didn't feel serious. It felt more like a puppy, frisky, eager but not as accurate or graceful as it might be. Sadly for 1M fans, we know the car's not going to grow up. BMW basically built it with spare parts on a very limited basis.
While the handling was nobody's favorite, at least the 1M was predictable, unlike the Evora S. Turning in meant a lot of wheel work, but it did the same thing every time. Still, the brakes faded every time you really got on it. Especially on the track, where the stoppers felt good for less than a lap. This is surprising considering they're the same discs as on the M3, but we think we had to use them more frequently because of the car's unsorted behavior. Randy found that getting on the middle pedal in a hurry would exacerbate the 1M's constant understeering. Moreover, the brakes warped badly during our canyon run, the only car here to fail in any way.
Despite its fun-first nature and pretty decent numbers, the 1 Series M Coupe just isn't a great driver's car. Back to Randy: "You know, I hate to pick on what obviously overall is a pretty good car, but in today's world there are not very many cars I hate...I hate this car."
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http://www.motortrend.com/features/performance/1109_2011_motor_trend_best_drivers_car/viewall.html#ixzz1XvGgnVRY