This is a rental for a few days. It got taken to the alps. It wandered city streets. It cruised along lakes. And it found itself on some derestricted autobahn. Welcome to the mini clubman BMW 118i !

Ok so for legal reasons I probably can’t dig into this little nugget of German platform engineering as much as say, any car from another manufacturer. But that’s fine, because truth be told, the little base 1 series is a perfectly acceptable car. Note from Pierce: I don’t think this is a perfectly fine car for the BMW monicker

Aight so imma dive on in:

The car has a 1.5L inline 3 sending all of its 140 horses and 220NM of torques to the front wheel exclusively, aided by a twin-scroll turbo. Now you might think that’s not very BMW.

The power delivery happens like the function Y=x/2. However wide open throttle is about as eventful as waiting for a delayed flight. The car doesn’t sing or protest, it just makes a buzzing noise that’s comes vaguely from the front, that just gets louder past 4K. But for the most part it’s quiet, sometimes a bit too quiet because you’ll not realize the car is at 3.5-4K. When you drive more spiritedly, the turbo does make a fun little noise. You hear more induction on throttle, and the waste gate off throttle. However, that surge in turbo sound isn’t paired to a really noticeable change in going anywhere.

The little mini sourced i3 is paired to a 6 speed. It’s fine. Clutch was light and felt like playing with a sanding belt but that’s the ‘rental lyfe’ I guess. The shifter is that same BMW shape that still somehow manages to fit perfectly in your hand, and the shifter itself didn’t have too much feeling other than “playing with a rubber band”. I’ve felt worse but this isn’t a sports car, so I’m at least happy that you can tell when it engages a new gear.

The car also had something called “shift assist”. I had no clue what that meant aside from auto rev-matching, but apparently it allows you to up shift without using the clutch. Okey then.

Now I didn’t just drive this little kidney grilled nugget in the city. Actually I’d rather drive anything anywhere else other than through the center of an old European city again. I’ve still not recovered mentally and have probably taken a few years off my life expectancy. But being in Germany (and I’ll be here for a while), seemed only right to go live out that car guy fantasy of getting onto the autobahn and booking it to the Alps (Expect more of that in the coming months!).

So I did : D

The little 118i on derestricted autobahn. It’s not completely hopeless! You’ll be going down like two gears to accelerate but it’ll get there and doesn’t complain or feel unstable. Steering is a bit lighter at 125 mph, but the little hatch was fairly planted and still had a good 2 or thousand RPM left (wish I had that 6th gear on either of my cars…).

Eventually, we had to get off, driving first through rural Germany, then through the alps into Austria. The little BMW was at its most enjoyable here, where it’s tiny existence shone the best. Driving into the alps, cruising quickly along glacial lakes as the mountains slowly become bigger and bigger. The car keeps its composure through the tighter turns up the mountains (I mean it’s a modern BMW/Mini platform, what did you expect?), with its small front wheels clawing at the tarmac like a puppy on a carpet.

Understeer was pretty minimal, and it was light enough that the rather anemic i3 was able to pull the car up hill and out from a corner. Getting on throttle you’ll really hear the induction noise and waste-gate echoing off the trees and rock faces when driving through these narrow mountain passes and along the lakes, and it even drowns out the buzzing sound this car naturally makes.

So then, the BMW 118i, with a manual… it most certainly is car amongst cars. It’s perfectly decent transportation for a European city, it’s not too hopeless on the highway, and handles about as fine as you’d expect from a modern German car. I haven’t driven many other European econoboxes yet, so I can’t really say if buying a base one series is a better choice over a 208 or Opel Corsa (personally I either car looks better). It was a nicer place to be than a 2018 base Jetta or Jetta Wolfsburg edition and didn’t immediately want to understeer.

However it wasn’t as special feeling, looking, or sounding as the last gen RWD i6 1’er. Go buy that or a used GTI instead if you value your time and entertainment. Maybe (most definitely) the awd M version is better, but that’ll have to wait for another time. Till then I’m on the lookout for something… French and lightweight.