BMW 1 Series M Sport First Drive

First thoughts: With the 1 Series M Sport, BMW's stuck a fantastic engine in a fantastic little handling package and then tweaked that handling package to be even better. And at around $60k cheaper than an M3, it's a wee ripper.

Talk to a BMW engineer and they'll talk your legs off explaining just what's gone into producing the new 1 Series M Sport. But, when you actually break it down, the philosophy is an age-old and simple one.

And that is, you take a beefy engine drop it beneath the bonnet of an insanely well-balanced and smallish car and wall-ah you end up with a giant killer. Peugeot did it with the 205 GTi, VW did it with the Golf GTi and so on and so forth...

Indeed, the new BMW 1 Series M Sport is so good we'll tell you right now, that if you were thinking about a new M3 you needn't bother. This thing is just as good (in fact, it might actually be better) and it's about $60k cheaper.

The only problem is that every single car that BMW could get its hands on (100) has been sold. Even the new batch (another 100 cars) it managed to get have all been sold too; it's an instant classic, you see.

Looking at the car it's clear to see the 1M means business. From the M gills, to the quad pipes at the back, and that skin-stretched-tight-over-rippling-muscle body, the 1 Series M Sport is easily the best looking M car for a long time. And we're so glad BMW chose not to build this car off the new-look 1 Series, because it's as ugly as sin.

Under the sculpted bonnet is a 3.0-litre twin-turbo inline six-cylinder that thumps out 250kW at 5900rpm and 450Nm from a very low 1500rpm which gives the 1 Series M Sport effortless pulling power. Fuel consumption for such a beastie is pretty impressive with BMW claiming a combined 9.6L/100km (for comparison a Subaru Outback we recently road tested returned an average of 9.8L/100km) and it's nowhere near as powerful.

The impressive engine is mated, thankfully, to a traditional six-speed manual which weighs just 43kg, which makes it a whole lot lighter than regular manual gearboxes. Its got a short and snickety throw but the box is fairly heavily sprung towards the centre so you do need to be confident when selecting a gear.

Underneath, the BMW engineers, just like every other car company with a performance car, developed and honed the suspension at Germany's famed Nuburgring. Now, we used to think tuning a car for the 'Ring was a load of twaddle until we actually drove the 'Ring earlier this year. If a car works at the 'Ring then it'll work everywhere, and that's because it's not a super smooth ribbon of bitumen, rather it's a very long, well used (it's open to the public just about every day) and twisting road through the countryside that ends where it began.

The brakes, and we so often forget to mention them when talking about a car, are whoppers (360mm at the front and 350mm at the rear). And no matter how hard we hit them on some of our runs through the Blue Mountains they never showed even a hint of fade.

You expect the 1 Series M Sport to be as hard as nails and rattle the fillings from your head across our rubbish roads, but it isn't like that at all. And that's because such is the torsional rigidity the suspension is able to do its thing and deal with bumps and ruts without upsetting A) the ride, or B) the handling.

In terms of handling, think 135i with some sprinkles on top. The body control is excellent and the steering is fast, feelsome and accurate. And it's worth mentioning that when ace UK TV show, Fifth Gear pitted the 135i against a Porsche Cayman the Bimmer came out on top. Could the 1 Series M Sport have the muscles to snot a 911? We reckon it's certainly capable of beating its big brother, the M3, in an arm wrestle.

BMW reckons you can sit four in the 1 Series M Sport, but we wouldn't want to spend more than an hour or so in the back seats (and that's not just because we'd rather be driving the thing). The boot's okay, though and the rear seats split fold so you can stash a fair bit of kit in the back if you need to.

Behind the wheel, the 1 Series M Sport is all about the driver although some of the buttons aren't clearly marked and can be a little fiddly to use, and iDrive isn't getting any easier to use as the years wear on.

The BMW bean counters managed to twist a few arms and have specified the 1 Series M Sport with almost everything that opens and shuts. It gets things like professional navigation, voice control, internet (yes, internet), remote alarm system, adaptive xenon headlights, an awesome hardon kardon sound system, 19-inch alloys and more. And the sticker price, before you add all of the usual on-road costs, is a bargain, for what this car is, $99,900.

Verdict: The numbers of the 1 Series M Sport are limited and that's just as well, because if they weren't we reckon BMW might well have found itself with a surplus of M3s. The M3 isn't a whole lot more practical, is line-ball dynamically and only a tenth or two quicker in the sprint to the legal limit.

But even ignoring the comparison with its own sibling, the 1 Series M Sport makes a lot of sense. It combines great looks with great handling and a great price tag. We, here at the NRMA, love the 135i, but we've just found ourselves a new favourite.