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ALL SHOW, NO GO: BMW’s 1 Series tii concept had two cylinders too few to make it a credible modern day 2002 tii.
Small capacity forced-induction engines may be the future in a world of stringent emission control, but six-cylinders are still better than four – just ask BMW.
With the company’s entry level M-car finally ready (due for local introduction in May 2011), M-division product manager and engineer, Christoph Smieskol, has admitted why the 1 Series tii coupe was cancelled. It was down to a simple lack of performance.
When the 1 Series tii coupe was first shown in concept form back in 2007, most enthusiasts though this modern interpretation of the classic 2002 tii BMW small coupe would be as performance focused as things would get for the 1 Series range.
Unfortunately the tii concept’s forced-induction four-cylinder engine lacked credible enough performance (it was slower than the stock 135i) to justify its headline billing.
Smieskol’s design team subsequently made the call to develop BMW’s 1 Series M Coupe instead, a car boasting 250kW worth of turbocharged in-line six cylinder power which made it 0.4 seconds quicker from 0-100km/h than the series production 135i.
Just goes to show, there is a limit to all this downsizing engine engineering malarkey.
With the company’s entry level M-car finally ready (due for local introduction in May 2011), M-division product manager and engineer, Christoph Smieskol, has admitted why the 1 Series tii coupe was cancelled. It was down to a simple lack of performance.
When the 1 Series tii coupe was first shown in concept form back in 2007, most enthusiasts though this modern interpretation of the classic 2002 tii BMW small coupe would be as performance focused as things would get for the 1 Series range.
Unfortunately the tii concept’s forced-induction four-cylinder engine lacked credible enough performance (it was slower than the stock 135i) to justify its headline billing.
Smieskol’s design team subsequently made the call to develop BMW’s 1 Series M Coupe instead, a car boasting 250kW worth of turbocharged in-line six cylinder power which made it 0.4 seconds quicker from 0-100km/h than the series production 135i.
Just goes to show, there is a limit to all this downsizing engine engineering malarkey.
