BMW M135i xDrive Review

When the second generation of the BMW 1 Series first came out, we looked at it and felt like a father who's not fully contempt with the girl his son brought home. Yes, the design was athletic and we knew it would be, but the face was less than photogenic to say the least.

Nevertheless, what daddy doesn’t know is that the girl has now learned what haute couture means. The M135i is thoroughly transformed, albeit through rather subtle elements, it wears its lines with a kind of understated visual poise that’s very hard to achieve.

As you approach the BMW M135i, it’s almost like you feel it’s cute. Especially in the case of the three-door version, there’s something about this car that reminds us of the BMW M Coupe shooting brake.

Make no mistake though, the car greets you with a front apron that tells a trained eye the vehicle is not to be messed about with. The wider air intakes cater to the needs of the meaty six-cylinder engine and those of the blue-caliper brakes. Gone are the fog lights, being replaced by a set of flaps and we have horizontal lines finished in a signature color for BMW’s M Performance cars, Ferric Grey.

You also find the aforementioned hue on the 18-inch wheels, which have a steampunk aroma to them, as well as on the mirror caps. The latter remind us of Audi’s obsession with the grey mirrors on its S and RS vehicles.

We’ll go over the better defined side skirts quickly and reach the rear apron. Here the designers have drawn wider lines for the rear valance, giving these a dark finish. Two medium-sized, black exhaust pipes pop out of the rear area, again warning us that there may be more here than meets the eye.

That’s it, there’s no Botox injected into the rear spoiler, the ground clearance sits at a very human 5.11 inches (130 mm). These “limits” were set by the fact that this is not actually an M car and we’ve used quotes because we like the relaxed posture of the M135i.