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There’s a reason Paul Horrell is one of the few automotive journalists I respect – quite simply he seems to step back from the hype and take a deep breath before he types.

Click here for his take on the 335i. I highly suggest you read it from start to finish, but if you turn to this blog because you like to be in the know without a lot of effort, here’s an excerpt:

toning down the more confrontational surfaces doesn’t seem to have brought any special beauty. Instead it leans to the bland. If you were shown the side profile (maybe with the characteristic ‘Hofmeister kink’ – the angled portion to the inside edge of each C-pillar – blacked out) and told it was a new Honda Accord coupe, you’d not be so surprised…. there’s some shunt in the driveline, and the six-speed manual transmission is on the clunky side. BMW used to be good at this… the huge torque makes it easy to spin the inside rear wheel coming out of tight bends. Habitual drifters would want a limited-slip diff, but it’s unavailable. Oh, and does the ride have to be so hard? ...There’s something slightly haughty and offhand and reserved about this thing. Too perfect, too literal, too passionless… BMW has bust a gut to build a brilliant 300bhp-plus two-door sporting coupe and I can’t quite fall in love with it.

UPDATE: while the performance is far more usable than an M3’s, the flat torque curve, the direct-injection clatter and the lack of athleticism over the last 1000rpm mean it’s nowhere near as exciting. – CAR

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 7th, 2006 at 12:31 pm and is filed under BMW, errata.