Little Bmw Packs Punch

The Age

Thursday March 2, 1995

Bill Tuckey

Bill Tuckey looks at BMW's latest offering a politically correct compact that comes in under the $50,000 luxury tax level.

THE new BMW 316i Compact launched in Australia yesterday at an in- your-face price of $38,750 is a politically correct car if you want an ashtray and cigarette lighter it's a no-cost option. And you can also delete the model badges to make people think you're driving something more expensive.

Released in Europe in the middle of last year, the Compact is a large stone thrown into the pond of the prestige car market, below the $50,000 level where the luxury car tax chimes in. It will give BMW an entry-level model $1200 under the previous price leader, the $40,000 Audi 80, and go a long way to fulfilling the Australian subsidiary's claim that this year it will lift last year's record sales of more than 7000 to close to 10,000 units.

Released at the same time is the BMW 318i Signature Edition the first of 500 cars being imported from the company's South African plant, to sell at $53,000, or $5000 more than the existing 318i sedan from Germany the Compact will, like all BMWs sold in Australia, come with standard equipment of airbag, ABS brakes and airconditioning.

The 316i Compact is built on the same wheelbase as the 318i and is identical from the front bumper back to the A-pillar. Then it metamorphises into a stumpy-tailed, two-door coupe 233 millimetres shorter than the sedan (which works out to just over nine inches in the old money). It's actually a three-door coupe/hatch, with a large rear tailgate and doors 12 millimetres longer than those on the 318is coupe.

The engine is a relatively new (1993) 1.6-litre single-camshaft four with two valves per cylinder, which looks old-fashioned on paper but then, BMW hasn't built a bad engine in two decades. It has modest output with 75 kilowatts and 150 Newton-metres of torque, about the same as the smaller Peugeot 306, and BMW claims a fairly leisurely 0- 100 kmh sprint of 13.1 seconds.

I drove the car through Germany last year and while you certainly have to keep its mind on the job with lots of right foot and plenty of gear-lever flailing, it still has that typical BMW feel of great balance and a willingness to participate in events.

This is partly because the engine sits longitudinally and drives the rear wheels, in a marketplace where transverse front-drive is the norm. The front suspension is from the current 3-Series, the rear the semi-trailing arm setup from the 318i that was replaced by the present range almost four years ago.

The idea behind that is to reduce cost, weight and give more boot space and for the first time on a BMW the spare wheel is a ``limp- home" space-saver slung under the boot floor. However, the interior isn't a spartan affair it's typical BMW.

The company also applied to the smallest car it's built in years the same principles of passenger safety as its bigger models (although, obviously, the smaller the car the less the protection). The Compact has passed the coming new American 56 kmh head-on crash tests the ones used by the local NCAP people in their much-criticised one-off tests in both 90-degree and offset collisions and the 48 kmh rear and side-impact standards.

The rear got most attention, because of the shorter crumple zone available, with the C-pillars and floor plan reinforced. The door frames lock over into the roof, the small (52-litres) fuel tank is ahead of the rear axle under the seat and the fuel filler moved to ahead of the rear-wheel arch again, for safety in rear impacts.

BMW went for a lot of small-bits storage space inside, for obvious reasons, along with two vanity mirrors, removeable rear head restraints, boot floor luggage tie-downs and flip-out rear windows.

The mirrors are electric but you get to wind your own windows, and there are belt pre-tensioners, anti-submarining shaping on the front seats and, if the airbag explodes, the crash sensor switches on the interior lights and hazard flashers and releases the central locking.

By August, BMW dealers will also have on the floor Compacts with the Open Air option pack. This comprises a roll-back cloth roof section, a bit like the Mazda 121 Fun Top, and will come with electric front windows and the handy BMW ``park distance control", by which a beeper tells you when you're getting too close to an obstacle front and rear.

The Open Air will cost $44,650.

The automatic transmission version of the 316i Compact is $40,250 and, in typical BMW style, the list of options is as long as your arm and not noted for modest pricing. It includes fog lights, remote security system, front electric windows, alloy wheels, cruise control, rear window and headlamp wipe/wash, premium sound system, sunroof, lumbar support, metallic paint and leather trim.

Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see if the market will accept a South African BMW 318i built in the Rosslyn plant near Pretoria, as against a German-sourced car. The Signature adds side skirts, alloy wheels, full leather, wood-trimmed centre console and a remote, central-locking security system to the normal equipment level of the $48,000 car. It also gets tiltable steering column, height-adjustable passenger seat, electric windows, dual airbags, ABS brakes, airconditioning and CD-compatible sound system (but no player).

Each car will carry a sterling silver plaque numbered 1 to 500, which BMW claims will give it ``collectable" status. Each buyer will get a package called Impressions of Mobility.

This contains prints of work specially done by Ken Done, Aboriginal artist Michael Jagamara Nelson and South African artist Esther Mahlangu , plus a CD of music from jazz virtuoso James Morrison. BMW Australia last year commissioned the four to travel Australia to record their impressions of the landscape.

The three painters had already done cars for the world-famous BMW car art collection; Mahlangu did a 525i in 1991, the first woman to join the ranks, while Nelson turned into a canvas of Aboriginal art a BMW M3 that had done two Australian racing seasons. Done created his work in 1989 on a racing M3 that in Jim Richards' hands won the 1987 Australian touring car drivers' title.

The Rosslyn plant used to produce a wide range of BMWs, but has now rationalised to building only 3-Series cars, with export targets in Australia and South-East Asia to follow those it already has in eight African countries to its north. Going through the plant late last year brought an overwhelming impression of a labor-intensive place almost bereft of robots, but building cars to exacting specification.

The company has to conform to South African Government demands to create and keep jobs, and in any case wasn't allowed to import robotics and other technology during the apartheid period.

But it has adapted its manufacturing to ensure the cars are the same as those out of Germany or the new and highly automated plant in South Carolina by using the same quality systems and linking everything by computer and satellite to Munich. Certainly, the cars we drove there were pretty good.

BMW Australia says it's not going to market the Compact as a cheaper BMW, but give it the same promotion and advertising treatment as the rest of the range. (It has not yet said whether it will promote the Signature as a South African car). However, there's no doubt BMW dealers will not hesitate to ask a potential buyer whether they'd rather a BMW or a Toyota Corolla Sprinter or Ford Telstar at the same price as a BMW Compact.

The company believes the Compact will attract mainly first-time BMW buyers on the basis that this is the best chance they have ever had of buying into the BMW ``club". The marketers also believe there will be a higher-than-usual percentage of women buyers.

There are, however, some formidable rivals in the price class. There is the Audi 80, which has four doors, a two-litre engine instead of a 1.6 and a lot more room; the sophisticated Citroen Xantia, the mid- priced Honda Accord with four doors and 2.2-litre VTEC engine, the excellent Saab 900 2.0 and probably the cheapest ($41,105) of the three-model range of the excellent all-new Nissan Maxima, with three- litre V6 engine and a lot of equipment.

The Signature, on the other hand, will be aimed at countering the entry-level Mercedes-Benz, the $52,500 manual-shift version of the C180, called the Esprit, with sports seats and colorful trim and a lot bigger car than the 3-Series. Its arrival a few months ago has irritated BMW Australia. And not far down the track is the Audi A4, a new version of the 80 but which, like the Signature, will be placed in the low $50,000s while leaving the cheaper existing car in place.