Arthur St. Antoine: Don't be fooled by the size of BMW's 135i. This little two door packs a heavy weight punch. Driving the rear wheels is a three liter twin turbo six making 300 horse power and running through a six speed manual transmission. Also on board, BMW's world famous chassis dynamics. Let's see how this little stealth fighter runs around Mazda Raceway, Laguna Seca.
Lap Time: 106.0 sec
Alright Randy you have had a chance to drive the BMW 135i, 300 horse power, twin turbo six, what are your initial thoughts after driving here at Laguna Seca?
Randy Pobst: Well the car has a real interesting engine for a BMW with the turbo right? And it has very different characters. It's much more of a mid range engine and it's quite powerful but it doesn't like revving up. Red line was about 7000 rpm and I noticed that the car started to feel really lazy over 6500 rpm, but very strong down around five, 5500. No perceptible turbo lag at all. Good strong engine, but a mid range engine. I will bet it's gonna be a really flexible, useful power-plant on the road and street driving. On the track it was actually, kind of, unsatisfying because of the way the power fell off at high rpm. In terms of handling, the 135 has, kind of, a combination of characteristics. Initial steering response is really good. You crack the wheel and it turns right in for the corner, but once the weight is transferred, there is a fair amount of body roll, significant body roll. Once it rolls over, then the car starts to under steer. I didn't enjoy the under-steer, a lot of it, which is surprising to me from BMW. I didn't think the car was well balanced in the middle of the corner.
Arthur St. Antoine: To find out where the BMW 135i finished in our 2009 Best Driver's Car competition, make sure to visit Motor Trend dot com on Wednesday, August 19.
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