BMW 116 Sport

Tags: BMW 1 Series, BMW 116, BMW 116 Sport
Now I’m an opinionated sod, that’s pretty well established, and its very easy to right off things as being crap, or ugly, or just plain shit. Which makes it all the more relevant when say that the BMW 1 Series is incredibly ugly and the engine in the 116 is absolutely gutless. You may consider these points a big deal and certainly if you are the kind of person who aspires to be one day sat in the weekend sun in your Porsche Boxter with the roof down, then indeed you wont be wanting a 1 series.
However those two points aside, I have to say that the 1 series is with out a doubt the best handling car I have driven to date and I once owned a non-chaved Saxo VTR ( this was back in 98 when they still had some cred left (with non chavs)). Once inside the cabin of the one series you can no longer see any of the body work, unless your preferred driving position is that of a praying mantis. The interior in my 116 sport was your typical Japanese style black, nothing offensive here. Though those of you who would prefer to lower the second hand value of your new BMW will no doubt be pleased to here a number of hideous interior options are available to you. The sport come with the standard mediocre CD player but it does include aux in and a separate 12v socket for all your Ipod requirements.
Missing from the 1 Series is the ability to have the center vents pump out hot or cold air, as you desire, quite a nifty feature on the 3 series. Though present is the weird new Key system also found on the 5 Series (and possibly 3 but I haven’t looked or bothered to research). This as Simon quite rightly points out is just making the process of starting your car overly complicated, just because its a bit fashionable at the moment.
Back to the handling, the sport was incredibly pointable in the corners and I found my self flicking the car form lane to lane with free abandon and a huge smile on my face. I’m going to cut this short as I’m well aware this is no www.topgear.com basically the whole experience leaves me wanting to upgrade my 330ci not to an M3 but to the 130 M sport.