More Grace Than Pace
Although the turbocharged straight-six
engine that nestles beneath this car's bonnet may share a few strands of DNA
with the upcoming M4's power plant, there's no risk of toes being trodden on.
With outputs identical to those of the 335i and the previous 335i Coupé, those
placing their orders for the 435i will, without a doubt, be doing so fully
aware that what they're getting is a brisk, well-mannered tourer. And, in this
respect, the 435i doesn't disappoint.
Few manufacturers can produce engines as
refined, creamily smooth and effortless as BMW's turbocharged 3.0-litre
straight six, and the 435i is pretty much the ideal vessel for such a unit.
Those 3 Series-based underpinnings bring
with them a fine balance of agility and involvement tempered with assuredness
and comfort that virtually no rival in the 4 Series's bracket can match.
Sat-nav
is standard, although the 'Business' system has a smaller screen than the
'Professional Media' one pictured here
We expected our test unit's combination of
firmer suspension and 40/35 profile tyres to serve up a jittery ride, but this
setup felt well damped over most road scars. The sweet spot sits in the comfort
setting of the adaptive setup, which provides a bit more give compared with the
tauter sports setting but doesn't submit easily to body roll. In this respect,
the 435i easily fulfils the role of comfortable, long-legged 2+2 capable of
inspiring confidence on sweeping roads as well as in tight corners.
Dynamically, there's little to fault. That
near-50:50 front-to-rear weight distribution and a centre of gravity that's
considerably lower than that of the outgoing Coupé lend the car an almost
pivot-like ability to nose into bends, aided in no small measure by an electric
power-steering system that's both responsive to inputs an sufficiently weighted
to provide good feedback without becoming tiresome.
The
435i's coupé's engine delights in much the same way it did in the old 335i
The powertrain doesn't give way to the
uncouth shove at 2,500r/min that often accompanies large-displacement
turbopetrol units. There's a delightfully fluid feel to its power delivery, but
it's in no way languid. The 400Nm of twist from just 1,200r/min allows the
powertrain to pull cleanly, whether in higher gears at low speeds or under hard
acceleration, and spool up to its 7,000r/min redline without any fuss. The
eight-speed 'box meshes well with this powerplant, being smooth in its operation
and assured in its ratio selection, and is seldom flummoxed by any abrupt
throttle inputs thrown its way.
While the engine is sublime in its own
right, there is, much like the design and packaging, a strange sense of things
standing quite still when a new-model-line revolution is expected.
A couple of years ago, we performance
tested - but didn't publish a test of - the E92 335i Coupé and a glance over
the figures reveal precious little between it and the 435i. Both have the same
engine outputs and, despite BMW's claim of a 30 kg weight saving over the
previous model, the 335i's 1,611 kg kerb weight undercut that of our,
admittedly well-equipped, 435i by 40kg.
The
boot is of a good size, with 445 litres of space on offer
Comparing performance results serves to
only substantiate the narrow margin separating the two. The seven-speed
dual-clutch-equipped 335i's 0-100 km/h time was only 0.03 seconds slower and
the older car bested the 435i's in-gear acceleration figures from 60 km/h
upwards.
It was with this in mind that a couple of
the testers walked away feeling that another 20-or-so kW would provide enough
fizz to better distance the 435i from the sedan and lend it the sort of
distinction that justifies its $9,430 premium.
Test Summary
Seldom does the summation of a really
accomplished test car bring with it such polarizing views, but this is exactly
what the 435i has presented. In isolation, it's sublime: the BMW is subtly
handsome, refined and possessed of the balanced dynamics that blows its rivals into
the weeds. It's a seriously appealing package, but it has one big problem...
L-shaped
rear lights are designed as a seamless rearward continuation of the swage line
along the side of the car
The 3 Series upon which it's based is more
affordable, similarly well balanced, a mite more practical and almost as
pleasing to the eye. It seems unfair to hobble the 435i thus, but with the
numeric leap from 3 to 4, there's always the risk that, when people look at the
newcomer, they will expect the sweeping differentiation that divides such
models as the 5 Series to 6, and XS to X6.
Perhaps the introduction of the eagerly
awaited M4 will widen the gap, but you get the feeling that the task of
spanning such a divide while meeting the groundswell of hype will place a huge
weight of expectation on the M car.
