GENEVA MOTOR SHOW: BMW 2 Series Active Tourer

You start to think the 2 Series Active Tourer is a very odd sort of BMW when some of its biggest features are its interior versatility, odds-and-ends storage and practicality.

When another of its biggest features is a system that keeps inattentive pedestrians alive by automatically braking the car in cities, you know BMW is pushing into unknown territory here, with a five-door passenger-focused wagon that’s almost a people-mover.

This is unknown territory for BMW’s marketers, in the same way the i3 was unknown territory for its engineers and production people. And it’s unknown territory for BMW in more ways than one.

It’s the first three-cylinder engine in any BMW (excluding the new MINI) boasting more than two wheels. It’s the first front-wheel drive production car the brand has ever had. And it’s the first BMW that can hold a 1.5-litre drink bottle in each of its front doors.

To be launched as a production model at the Geneva motor show in March, the 2 Series will share the same modular front-drive architecture as the recently released new MINI, with some significant differences.

For starters, it uses a much longer 2670mm wheelbase to help it stretch the rear-seat legroom to what it calls “luxury limousine standards”.

The five-door hatch will be 4342mm long in all of its variants, plus 1800mm wide and 1555mm high, giving it more width in the cabin than the 3 Series but with an 11.3-metre turning circle.

The 2 Series Active Tourer will arrive with three models: a 218i with the same 1.5-litre turbocharged three-cylinder engine that debuts in the MINI Cooper, a 225i that shares the MINI Cooper S’s turbocharged four-cylinder motor and a 218d, with a four-cylinder 2.0-litre turbo-diesel.

Oddly, BMW insists on calling it a 2 Series, even though it’s front-drive and uses a completely different chassis architecture and construction system to rear drive 2 Series Coupe, which is the only existing 2 Series model.

The 2 Series Active Tourer is so different that the two cars can share none of their major engineering pieces, yet they carry the same name.

In fact, the 2 Series wagon has a lot more in common with the all-new MINI than it does with the 2 Series Coupe. They share a common architecture that includes a sophisticated four-link rear suspension and an innovative single-joint spring-strut front-end with the same electro-mechanical steering system.

But then the 2 Series Active Tourer goes its own way. It’s more than half a metre longer than the MINI Cooper hatch, rides on 175mm more wheelbase and is 73mm wider, too. Then there are the practical considerations. It needs half a metre more road to turn around (11.3 metres instead of 10.8 metres). And it’s heavier.

Depending on the engine, the 2 Series Active Tourer weighs 1320kg in its lightest (218i) form, which is 235kg heavier than the Cooper, even though they share the same engine and gearbox combination. The 225i is the heaviest Active Tourer, at 1430kg, which is 270kg heavier than the Cooper S.

They have completely different philosophies, of course, because the MINI is a hatch that lives on character and cool, while the 2 Series Active Tourer is a five-seat, five-door versatile wagon that edges perilously close towards being a people-mover.

BMW insists it’s all about the practical and luxurious interior that breaks new ground for the brand, plus it puts a higher priority on functionality and versatility than any other model in the brand. There’s something to be said for it.

From its wide rear hatch, which can be opened with the optional foot-swiper, it can swallow things that are 2.4 metres long (which coincidentally happens to be about the length of the cross-country skis so beloved of BMW engineers).

There’s a false floor in the boot, with a couple of shaped compartments beneath it, plus an array of hooks and nets above it. The 40/20/40-split rear seat folds to a pure flat floor to boost the luggage space from 468 to 1510 litres – which is out there towards the X5’s cargo area.

It gets better as you go forward, because the rear seat shoulder room is actually 10mm wider than it is up front, plus the rear bench can slide forward or backwards and has an adjustable backrest angle as well.

The driving position is higher than normal and somewhere between a (cough) 2 Series Coupe and an SUV because, BMW insists, it’s going to be driven more in cities and needs more practical vision considerations. That, and it’s easier to get in and out of.

One of its major differences to the MINI is the adoption of an electronic parking brake, which saves enough space that the car could have a proper centre-console storage area, plus another one in the armrest.

The panoramic roof option could be argued to be part of that, though threats rarely come from above (though that is about the only area not covered by a safety system of some kind).

The cabin is heavily driver focused, regardless of the less sporty pretensions of the Active Tourer, with the air-conditioning, navigation, radio and all other controls aimed at the driver in a horizontally layered dashboard. There’s also a head-up display, which BMW claims is a first in the compact premium class (which, we’re guessing, includes the A-Class).

As part of its city conquest goal, it debuts a Pedestrian Warning system with City Braking, which monitors pedestrians in urban streets, figures which ones are about to get themselves hurt and warns the driver. If the driver ignores the warning, it brakes the car autonomously, even up to 60km/h, to either miss the pedestrian or mitigate the impact.

It also makes city life easier by hooking the camera-based adaptive cruise control into a traffic jam assist to combine the steering, braking and accelerating in one ECU. If you keep one hand on the wheel, the car will do all of the pointing, going and stopping for you, all the way from zero up to 140km/h. There are also other city niceties, like its self-parking trick and its 8kg aluminium bonnet, which is designed to be softer for anybody it hits than a steel one.

For all of its practical intentions, the 225i version of the Active Tourer still gets to 100km/h in 6.8 seconds – precisely the same time it takes the MINI Cooper S, even though it weighs another 270kg.

That’s because BMW gives its own front-driver a more powerful version of the four-cylinder 2.0-litre motor than it gives to MINI. The Cooper S has 141kW while the 225i Active Tourer gets 170kW out of the east-west engine.

The four-cylinder engine uses two counter-rotating balancing shafts to smooth out any unwanted coarseness and it integrates a twin-scroll turbocharger into the exhaust manifold and pairs it with double VANOS, variable valve timing and direct fuel-injection.

As the fastest Active Tourer, the 225i will hit 235km/h, but gives away its urban nature by delivering its 350Nm of torque from just 1250rpm, which is earlier than the diesel. It also mates this to an eight-speed automatic (the MINI Cooper S uses a six-speeder) and an open front differential, which BMW insists doesn’t deliver any torque steer.

It uses 6.0L/100km on the NEDC combined cycle, 139g/km of CO2 and also rides on larger 205/55 R17 tyres, which is why it has a drag coefficient of 0.29Cd -- 0.03Cd worse than the 218i version.

The entry-level car, the 218i Active Toure,r gets the same output from its three-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine as the MINI Cooper, so it has 100kW of power over 4500-6000rpm and 220Nm from 1250rpm. It is available as a six-speed manual, though there is an optional six-speed automatic.

Given that it weighs so much more than the Cooper, it’s no surprise that the five-door Active Tourer is slower, posting a 9.3-second burst to 100km/h (1.4 seconds behind the Cooper) and a slower 200km/h top speed.

It’s also thirstier, though 4.9L/100km isn’t bad for a car this large inside and comes about thanks to idle-stop, brake energy recuperation and a shift indicator, plus an Eco Pro mode in the driving software.

A 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel will also lead the Active Tourer charge, including 110kW of power and 330Nm of torque from 1750rpm. It gets to 100km/h in 8.9 seconds, but its highlight is its economy, posting 4.1L/100km.

While Australia is likely to stick with those three options, BMW will release a 220i, a 220d, a 216d and all-wheel drive versions of the 220i and 225i for the European market.