This car has been at the top of its game since it was in short pants and BMW is to start its Indian innings with the new 3-series. Here’s what to expect from a car that is already World Car of the Year.

‘The 3-series feels like a thoroughbred sports car in saloon car disguise.’

National character determines a lot. Think about it. It’s who we are, how we think, what we lay emphasis on.
It moulds and shapes our food, the way we dress, how we approach a sport and how we create and design things. Japanese food and apparel are light, done with high levels of precision and maximum efficiency. On the other end of the scale, everything American is big brash and has a strong affinity to excess, be it food, cars, whatever. Italians are full of design flair, with maximum performance, colour and drama sought. And the Germans are reserved, structured and evolutionary rather than revolutionary. This is true of their cars as well.
Munich, where BMWs come from, lies in Bavaria, southern Germany. All Beemers as a result are deep fried in German efficiency, common sense and logic. This is abundantly clear as soon as you grasp a door handle, open a door, adjust the solidly-built seats or use any of the car’s controls. The clutch works with a well-damped and solid feel, you gain tactile pleasure from holding the well-crafted steering wheel and the dashboard is as neatly put-together as a German army regiment. And you get that solid built-to-last feel as well. Yes, there has always been a lot of cold efficiency around BMWs, enough to power an industrial freezer.
Still, somewhere underneath it all is a generous measure of warmth, a friendliness, a desire to push towards the extreme, missing from most other German cars. And more than a bit of flair too. BMW engineers and designers attribute this almost-Latin disposition to the proximity of Munich to the Italian border. The boot-shaped nation exerted a very strong influence on Bavaria, even ruling the region for a time, and its nearness affected everything from the food of the region to the Bavarian’s comparatively extroverted character. Bavaria in fact was an independent kingdom, only joining the German federation of states in 1922.
The design of the new 3-series may be the mildest among BMW’s more recent launches. But BMW has to be safe here as this car amounts for approximately half its production. Still it has character and style in abundance. The basic three-box structure of this car remains, but with a bonnet long enough to slot a long straight six under. The car’s nose may not be as wildly stylised as the eagle- eyed 5-series, but it’s stretched-to-the-wheel arch headlights, wide kidney grille and prominent bonnet ‘V’ give it character. Also very interesting is the sharp line that extends from the front wheel arch to the rear of the car.

The really pretty bit, however, is the rear of the car. The ‘Hoffmiester kink’ in the C-pillar, the way the lines of the car stretch back to the tail-lights, the negative ledge of the bootlid, all go a long way in making this car look more attractive in three dimension.
This car is driver-oriented like few others. The seat, be it manual or automatic, has a wide range of adjustments. Uniquely, you can tilt the seat and seatback together, the squab extends for greater under-thigh support and lateral bolsters in the seat back can be adjusted to grip your back. The steering wheel adjusts for reach and rake and the beautiful alloy-backed gearlever falls to hand almost naturally. And as a BMW designer told us, if it looks like leather, carbon fibre or wood, it’s because it is. No lookalike or fake stuff here.
Simple and clear are the words that best describe the rest of the interiors. The three-spoke wheel is incredibly well crafted, the buttons on the centre console are of very high quality and the dials clean, white-on-black ones. While the top-spec India-bound 3-series will have BMW’s screen-based feature control, or iDrive, there will be a more basic version for India too.
The cars we drove, the 325i and the 330i, were both powered by BMW’s famous straight six motors. Both cars also had six-speed manual gearboxes, but BMW will provide a six-speed auto to Indian drivers as well. The motors for the Indian-assembled 3-series are yet to be announced but we have it on good authority that there will be two petrol and two diesel models, a six-cylinder petrol among them.
Thumb the starter button, pretentious but fun, pad the throttle and the 3-series settles into a smooth idle. There is some vibration through the gearstick, but apart from this the motor is all but inaudible at low revs. A light clutch action, soft accelerator pedal and direct steering are your first impressions of the car. The 3 goes exactly where you point it but the steering does feel a touch slow at low speed — no active steering on these cars.
BMW has dubbed the new 3-series the E90 and this car forms the core of the brand, with everything the company stands for manifested here.
Like every BMW, the car is rear-wheel drive and displays the carmaker’s wonderful obsession of balancing the front/rear weight bias to as close to 50:50 as possible. Lightweight metals and components are used in the nose of the car, to offset the weight of the motor, and heavier metal is used at the rear to help achieve this ideal weight balance.
To help keep unsprung mass down, the lower arms of the suspension are done in aluminium. And both front and rear suspensions are mounted on very effective sub-frames that help isolate the passenger cabin from the road.
Still once on the road, you quickly realise that the suspension is stiffly sprung. Silent but stiff, even on the few, less than severe, rough patches we found on Germany’s billiards-table-smooth roads and autobahns. We drove from Munich into Austria and back, a 200-kilometre round trip, but the ride quality of the car only occasionally impressed over rough patches and never at low speed.
This is because the new 3-series uses run-flat tyres which have harder tyre sidewalls that don’t flex and cushion the suspension. The suspension has been designed with these run-flat tyres, so the effect is not as severe as on earlier cars. The ride quality on the cars sold in India should be better, as BMW will modify the suspension for India roads and conditions. The cars will be raised for greater ground clearance and will run on taller profile tyres too. This should improve ride quality. Another change will be the presence of a spare tyre. There is usually no spare in the boot, but BMW is forced to comply with ARAI regulations. The company says it will provide a tyre, but that there is really no need for one as you can drive even a severely-punctured Run Flat Tyre (RFT) for 200km at a maximum of 80 kilometres an hour!
Comfort levels, however, are much higher than on the earlier model. The longer wheelbase means that this car has more legroom, and the car feels wider too. The backrest of the rear seat is slightly vertical but that apart this car offers improved standards of comfort.
The best seat in the house, however, is behind the wheel. The six-cylinder engines never feel frantic and there is no sudden build-up of power either, but the power flows smoothly, in a thick seemingly unending torrent. Feeling unhurried and relaxed at 5500rpm, yet leaden with awesome top-end punch, these are some of the best production car engines around. The motor, in fact, feels so relaxed at high engine speeds, you tend to stay in a lower gear. The feeling you carry away with you is of smooth linear, seemingly endless power delivery.
Still, the bottom-end responses of these Valvetronic motors, especially the 325i, could do with some extra muscle. Especially if you need instant acceleration, then a quick shift to a lower gear is the only solution.
The six-speed manual gearbox is light and needs a firm hand, but once you’re used to it, it’s great fun.
The 3-series impresses massively as soon as you begin to drive it. But it’s the little things that make you really fall for it. Like the fact that the position of the pedals is perfect for heel-and-toe blips while going down the ‘box, or that the gearbox absolutely loves quick shifts. Or the fact that there is almost ZERO lag in the steering and that even the smallest of steering wheel movements alters the trajectory of the car, every so slightly. Or that despite being a front-engined saloon car, the 3 never feels nose-heavy; and even when pushed hard, it still feels absolutely and totally balanced and well poised — like an Olympian figure-skater on ice. Or that you feel as confident at 200kph as you should at 100, though this initially scares you. Only more expensive cars should drive this well.
Hard on the strong brakes and the new 3 bleeds speed with almost no nerves or tramlining. As you let off the brakes and blend in steering lock, the incredibly well-weighted steering wheel tells you how much grip the front and rear wheels have; on a scale of 100. Then you can alter your line, past the apex with tyres screaming, and still it remains poised and balanced. Now feed in the smooth punch, the muted snarl and carve out a quick exit. That’s one big smile, one per corner.
When the Indian-assembled cars are launched here, they will go up against the Mercedes C-Class and Audi A4, both strong competitors. We need to drive the India-spec cars with their modified suspensions and have to rationalise motors, power, specification and price. But on the face of it, BMW has the edge.
Prices, we have been promised, will be very competitive. There will be two diesel and two petrol motors, and the six-speed auto and manual gearboxes will provide an added bonus. Apart from some ride quality issues that should be sorted out on the India suspension and the mildly unenthusiastic low engine speed responses, this car really has no real weak areas. How often do you find that?

FactFile

BMW 320i/325i/330i

Price Rs 27-32 lakh (est)
Engine 1995cc/2497cc/2996cc,petrol
Power 150bhp/218bhp/258bhp
Torque 20.39kgm/28.49kgm/30.59kgm
Kerb weight 1435-1555kg
Installation Longitudinal, front, rear-wheel drive
L/W/H 4520/2013/1421mm
W’base 2760mm

Verdict
You can’t please all the people all the time, but the 3-series can. Well, almost.