The BMW 128ti is the most un-BMW ever, with its front-wheel drive and 4-cylinder engine and the brand is hoping to take on the Volkswagen Golf GTI. Watch our video review!
BMW’s 1 Series hatchback has been a success for the brand; a volume-seller filling the void left by what has become a much larger, more expensive 3 Series, and representing many motorists entry point into the brand.
But enthusiasts also loved the rear-wheel-drive drivetrain, coupled with, in some models, a 6-cylinder motor. It was a unique recipe in the world of hot hatches – there was nothing else on the market like it.
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However, neither of those features are now available on a 1 Series. There are no 6-cylinder powerplants available, and the power is now sent to the front wheels, or all four.
This meant that the BMW was now going to have to properly square off against some stiff competition, most notably with the ever-popular Volkswagen Golf GTI.
And so, Bavaria has come up with this, the BMW 128ti. With a 2.0-litre, 4-cylinder turbocharged petrol motor up front, sending power exclusively to the front wheels, the two cars couldn’t be more closely matched. Power and torque figures are also almost identical.
In this review, our video guy Ciro De Siena tries to answer the question, has this new hot-hatch recipe from BMW resulted in a delicious and satisfying eggs benedict that you would happily share on Instagram, or is it a sloppy mess that you might write about on TripAdvisor? Only one way to find out.
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