After three long, yet glorious days at BMW North America’s facility in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, I found myself watching old episodes of Top Gear as a means of relaxing while waiting for my flight back home. Who knew you could relax while listening to Jeremy Clarkson?
Ironically enough, it was an episode from Season 10 in which the Top Gear boys purchased a BMW 330d and converted it to racing spec for a 24-hour endurance race at the historic Silverstone circuit.
I’d seen it hundreds of times but it’s still enjoyable to see Top Gear give a somewhat serious look at a BMW performance, much less a diesel one at that. However, the episode brought me back to my experience at BMW’s New Jersey headquarters earlier that day.
After some presentations regarding EfficientDynamics, a showing of the Rolls Royce Ghost and the full information session of the soon-to-be released 550i Gran Turismo, I was able to step out into the parking lot to test out a variety of new BMW models. Aside from the MINI-E, what caught my eye was a subtle little 5-door hatchback wedged behind an X6 Active Hybrid. Upon wandering over, it was indeed the 123d M Sport hatchback that we’d been promised would “happen” to be present for us to test on BMW’s campus during the inaugural BMW One Day University program. The back-story to 123d is what you would expect: it was manufactured in Germany and then eventually brought over to the U.S. facility as a car for engineers to examine and try out. As this car was purely for the engineers and not certified for U.S. consumption, I was reserved to hustling it around the gorgeous ex-apple orchard that is the BMW campus.
Interestingly enough, this was to be the first amount of seat time I’d had with any 1 Series car, much less a diesel. After plopping behind the wheel, I was pleasantly surprised to find the interior to be comparable in terms of quality to that of an E90 and that I had a massive amount of headroom compared to my E46 coupe. Maybe last March I should have kept that deposit on a 135i after all?
I inserted the key and thumbed the starter and the little diesel rumbled to life. The start-up of the car felt a bit jittery for a second or so and I could feel it through the gear lever but that was all replaced by a very low, clattery noise as the car idled. After looking the controls over once more to make sure I was familiar with everything, I set it off through the parking lot and onto the road looping the campus. As I began to build the revs and shift from first to second, the clattery noise seemed to disappear and the engine sounded more like lower displacement inline-6’s than what I expected a diesel engine to sound like: a GMC 2500HD truck. Thankfully, I was wrong and as the revs raced, rather quickly as that, to the redline, the engine had a much more angry note, saying “Yes, I’m efficient but I want to drive!” I began to speed the little bimmer around the campus and was immediately impressed by the seats of the 1 Series, much better bolstering than my E46, and the way the whole package worked in unison.
The 123d does an excellent job of providing a well-balanced driving experience with a compliant chassis and well-balance suspension. I felt that the steering wheel and the weight of the steering was balanced and gave me the feedback I wanted from the front wheels without being too abrasive. Again, the car reminded me of an E46 soul successor in the way the car performed as a whole package. What really stood out, as you’d expect, was the engine. Despite having a low redline compared to gasoline engines, I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of thrust from the wall of torque that comes on strong very low in the rev range all the way through to the top end. The torque and low redline required I be very attentive to when to shift gears; a task I was more than happy to engage in. Unfortunately, the start-stop technology on the test was not switched on at the time of our tests so I’m unable to comment on that aspect of the engine.
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