Jeremy Clarkson made a fool out of himself a week ago when he did a comparative test between the hottest hatches of the moment, on Top Gear. In his typical style, he dismissed the A45 AMG in a couple of seconds for being too expensive and then continued to criticize the BMW M135i for his own faults when driving on the wet at 120 mph. We covered that subject, extensively, last week.
However, such a dispute ignited the spirits of both camps, the VAG fanclub and the Bimmer fanboys. Some of the arguments both sides brought to the table stand but the biggest, in my opinion, is the failed comparison.
If you’re to test the Golf 7 platform against the M135i you should get the R20 model and not the GTI, simply because the lack of power is too big. Going with the former you stand a better chance to deal with the Bavarians’ 3-liter powerhouse.
Looking over the specs, you’ll notice that things are closer in this case than for the GTI. The R20 has a turbocharged 2-liter petrol engine making 300 HP and 380 Nm (280 lb-ft) of torque, has 4Motion all-wheel-drive and a dual clutch DSG 6-speed automatic gearbox. It will do 100 km/h (62 mph) in 4.9 seconds. The GTI simply can’t compare.
On the other hand, the M135i uses a much more relaxed 3-liter 6-cylinder inline turbocharged engine making 320 HP and 450 Nm (332 lb-ft) of torque, has rear-wheel-drive (xDrive AWD is optional) and is connected to an 8-speed automatic ZF gearbox. It will do 100 km/h (62 mph) in the same 4.9 seconds time with RWD and 0.2 seconds faster when sending the power to all four wheels.
If you pit the two up against each other in a drag race to 250 km/h (155 mph) what will happen? Check out the video below to see for yourself.
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