BMW 1 Series M Coupe 2011 Review

Price Guide (recommended price before statutory and delivery charges): $99,900
Options fitted (not included in above price): Metallic Paint $1700
Crash rating: Five-star (Euro NCAP)?
Fuel: 98 RON high octane
Claimed fuel economy (L/100km): 9.6 ?
CO2 emissions (g/km): 224
Also consider: Audi TT RS, Porsche Cayman S

The BMW 1 Series M Coupe is fantastic car, easy to drive fast and able to provide one of the most rewarding experiences you can attain on public roads. Just don't call it an M1 -- to say such a thing is seen as blasphemy in the eyes in the Bavarian Illuminati.

The BMW M1 was a special low volume mid-engined sportscar built in the late 1970s to homologate a racecar of the same name. The 1 Series M Coupe is also a special (relatively) low-volume sporty but it was built primarily for private buyers, not race teams.

Nevertheless, this high performance rear-wheel drive twin-turbo coupe is an M car in every other sense, and is arguably one of the best driver's cars under $100,000.

Available exclusively as a manual model, the BMW 1 Series M Coupe's motive force comes courtesy of a 3.0-litre inline six cylinder engine donated by the 135i Coupe.

Power is hiked from 225 to 250kW at 5900rpm though as we discovered the engine is happy to rev to around 7000rpm. Torque rises from 400 to 450Nm and is available everywhere! Plus an overboost function gives you an extra 50Nm when you flatten the loud pedal.

The BMW 1M is also wider, lower and stiffer than the BMW 135i and looks angry. It borrows a lot of running gear from the current V8-powered M3, such as the durable six-speed manual gearbox, the lighter front and rear aluminium suspension which reduces unsprung weight plus the driveline and rear axle. Pretty much an M3 with a different engine then? Sort of...

The brakes are bigger than the 135i Coupe, now 360mm front and 350mm rear units fitted with single piston floating calipers. While most high performance sportscars have four or six-piston calipers, these brakes are nevertheless very effective, decelerating the car with an intense amount of force.

That BMW had planned to build just 2500 of these very special $99,900 machines (then upped that figure to 4000 after massive global demand) shows that desire for this car is intense. And having driven it, it's not hard to see why.

It accelerates like a rocket, turns with the grace of a ballroom dancer and stops like a stunned mullet. Indeed, explosive dancing fishes are what this car is all about. Seriously, if no compromise performance is what you want, this car is for you. It reminds me of a highly modified early '90s turbocharged rear-wheel drive Nissan Skyline in the way it delivers its power -- intensely rapidly and with no regard for the rear tyres.

Better yet, the beefed-up BMW cuts a swathe through corners like few other cars. Low profile 19-inch diameter Michelin Pilot Sport tyres (245/35 R19 front, 265/35 R19 rear) provide plenty of grip and the steering is communicative and almost perfectly weighted.

Front end grip is impressive and the car feels very light on its feet.

Aural feedback from the engine is without soul however -- there's no real rhythm to its blare, just plenty of volume -- but physical feedback is forceful. Winding out first gear is an exercise in control... Flooring the throttle will result in wheel spin and/or traction control intervention. In second gear you can be a little more brutal but still expect some rear wheel histrionics along the way. Third gear was probably my favourite ratio -- and the most useful on fast flowing roads.

Snicking the gear stick between the gears is well defined and satisfying and the twin turbo setup is sublime, needing all but a few nanoseconds to spool up. Then when peak torque mingles with peak power at around 4500rpm, you are forcibly shoved into the sports seats.

I found the car to be ludicrously quick between 3000 and 5000rpm -- the glut of torque means you rarely need to squeeze every last drop of power from the engine or keep it high in the rev range like some sports cars. It's the Beemer's insane mid-range punch makes it super quick, so you just point and shoot.

But as Spiderman's kindly uncle once said, with great power comes responsibility. Despite the giant rear tyres and wider track, the tail end of the car will break traction readily. It's okay if you have an unlimited tyre budget and a racetrack in your backyard (and you like drifting) but in any other scenario it can be a touch scary.

Being smooth with the throttle on corner exits will ameliorate this issue, but what is sometimes seen as a boon will wind up getting your car impounded, or possibly crushed in most states of Australia.

Which is where the MDM stability control mode comes in. This 'medium' setting intrudes shortly after wheelspin occurs, but is subtle in its intervention and thankfully leaves the party early. It doesn't upset your rhythm too much when you're pushing on, allowing mild power oversteer and generally keeping you on the straight and narrow (your honour!).

That said, on Australian roads, the BMW 1 Series M Coupe is overkill. It's a victim of its own brilliance in a way. It's so utterly quick, so balanced, and so tied to the road that unless you want to break the law in a gratuitous manner, you won't be able to taste the cars full potential. For me that was a big deal.

Don't get me wrong, the car is very satisfying to drive even at 60 per cent of its capability -- it's just that I wanted to know what it was like at 95 per cent.

Simply put, you'll need a racetrack and a long weekend to fully exploit the car's chassis. And to be frank, I've had more fun in hot hatches on the same roads.

It's not clear how many 1 M buyers will take their cars on the racetrack, which is why the car's everyday performance is perhaps more relevant to a lot of prospective buyers. When driven sedately it behaves relatively well, and on the freeway at 100km/h the engine lopes along at 2000rpm in sixth gear, returning much lower fuel consumption figures than its claimed 9.6L/100km average.

The engine is a real pussy cat when not trying to rip the rear wheels to shreds and the broad spread of torque means it's easy to punt around town. You rarely have to worry about being in the right gear.

Ride quality is very firm and you will feel every cats-eye, every level crossing and every pot hole the tyres roll over. You can even feel some white lines... Personally, this is something I could live with but my wife made it clear she would not be happy with the comfort levels.

The interior of the car is finished in a spartan manner -- everything's rather minimal. This may work for a BMW 120i Coupe, but when you're spending $100k on the 1M small touches of suede on the dash are not enough (and look like an afterthought that doesn't blend in particularly well with the dash plastics).

It's certainly not an unpleasant place to spend time, I just expected better quality materials and wanted my passengers to be as impressed by the cabin as the attention-grabbing exterior. The leather seats are very good, perfectly shaped, but are finished with low quality cow hide -- the kind you'd expect on a Commodore not a mythical M car.

There are a couple of redeeming aspects: the thumping Harmon Kardon stereo and the chunky small diameter steering wheel with M-inspired stitching imparts a tangible motorsport feel.

Yet for all the car's compromises and shortcomings, I cannot help but admire this vehicle. Driving the BMW 1 Series M Coupe on deserted alpine roads, the odd deer and wombat my only company, is easily one of the most memorable driving experiences I've had. The sorts of mid-corner speeds this car can maintain are astonishing, and in mechanical terms you probably won't find better value for money.

It costs about $15,000 less than the Porsche Cayman and judging by the amount of people taking photos of the car on their camera phones during our test period, I'd say it carries a similar amount of street cred.

Make no mistake the 1 M is a true M Car. It delivers a massive performance kick for the driver who doesn't wait to wait in the queue, but can you live with it every day?

That's the $100,000 question prospective buyers will need to ask themselves...

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