With Infiniti and Lexus offering 300+ horsepower in their 3-Series comptetitors, BMW found itself in a tight spot. It's new 3.0-liter inline six was very powerful for its size, but 255 horsepower just wasn't going to cut it with too many potential buyers. What to do?

One option would have been to match the Japanese in displacement, and offer a 3.5-liter six. For whatever reason, perhaps a financial one, BMW opted not to take this route. Instead, it fitted the 3.0 with a pair of small turbos and direct injection.

While turbos offer the best way to boost horsepower-per liter. They are not without tradeoffs. Most notably, there tends to be a lag before boost kicks in, and engines with them are harder to modulate. Could even an engine with even a pair of small, quick-spooling turbos hope to retain the immediate responses and easy modulation that have long made BMW's sixes stand out above the rest? Or had BMW abandoned yet another aspect of its identity in the quest for broader appeal?

Yep, one way to find out: drive the new 335i coupe.

(A brief note on the name: a "C" no longer precedes the "i"; it seems coupes and convertibles will no longer be named differently from sedans and wagons.)

Styling

Most reviewers will express relief that the new 3-Series coupe hasn't been Bangled. There's nothing quirky or odd about its styling. Instead, we just have the perfect proportions that have long blessed BMWs, once again in combination with clean styling that borders on teh generic. The car's flanks have a bit of flare to them, just enough to make the shape modestly interesting. And so most people will find it beautiful. Me, I've got to wonder if a bit more couldn't have been done to make the coupe fresh and strikingly beautiful. And so my eyes find more to like in the G35 coupe. The Mercedes CLK, on the other hand, is a pudgy design that doesn't warrant comparison with the other two.

Inside we have the same boring interior that BMW has been putting into all of its cars since the 2002 7-Series. Why cannot even the Z4 sports car have a center stack canted towards the driver? This used to be a BMW trademark. Sure, the materials are rich and well-fitted, but there's no visual excitement to be had here, or even much to suggest that this is a driver's car. The main exception: a pair of well-bolstered front seats that would look great in any sports car. Especially in the red leather of the car I drove.

Accommodations

I had wondered if the seating position would be lower in the coupe, to provide more of the feel of a sports car. Nope. If anything, I sat higher than I remember sitting in the sedan. So they're probably the same. Either way, you sit higher above a lower instrument panel relative to previous 3-Series. Which I personally like, as I used to power the seat up an inch or so in those cars. So while the driving position might not feel especially sporting, its pretty much perfect from the standpoints of comfort and visibility. An "automatic safety belt assistant" motors the belt forward when you get into the car, making it easier to reach. Still not easy.

The Sport Package is well worth getting for the sport buckets alone. They are quite comfortable, and the ample side bolsters can be electrically adjusted. No sporting car should be without the latter feature. Why must it be so rare? I'd happily give up the commonly available adjustable lumbar for it. Not that BMW requires such a trade: the seats have four-way power lumbar, up and down as well as in out out.

This might be a coupe, but the two-spot rear seat affords decent headroom and a surprising amount of knee room. For someone of my middling stature, the main shortcoming back there--aside from the usual coupe difficulty of getting in and out--is that the cushion is a bit low to provide adequate thigh support. The rear seat of a G35 is far less hospitable.

The trunk is about equal that of the average compact sedan. The rear seat folds down in two sections to extend the cargo space. Plenty useful as coupes go.

On the Road

And now for the main event. No surprise, the 335i is very quick. It would be quick even if the official 300-horsepower spec was accurate. Which it probably is not: based on a pair of dyno runs Automobile Magazine estimates it might be putting out as much as 350 at the crank.

As with the 330i, the 335i doesn't feel as quick as it is. You won't find the thunderous thrust of a Corvette or Mustang SVT Cobra here. But when a car can get to sixty in about five flat, no amount of refinement can disguise the fact that you're gathering speed quite rapidly.

The real question was what sacrifices in driveability had to be made to obtain this acceleration. The answer: very few. Some turbos seem to be connected to on/off switches. One second you're barely moving, the next you're getting ten times the boost you bargained for. There's none of that here. Boost comes and goes seamlessly. Above 3,000 rpm its pretty much impossible to tell the engine is even turbocharged. It feels just like a (much) larger normally aspirated engine would. Responses feel as immediate as in the non-turbo six, and the soundtrack is at least as rich. A few years back BMW overly muffled its engines in pursuit of the mass market. Thankfully they're now letting their engines sing again. Joy to the ears.

Even at lower rpm, you have to attend closely to symptoms to notice them. Push down the go pedal at 2,000 rpm, and you will find that after a second or so power kicks up in a way it would not in a normally aspirated engine. This can make the engine a touch harder to modulate in turns when you're not really getting on it, but just a touch. Easy fix: downshift and get on it.

How has BMW achieved this level of driveability with a turbo? Most will point to the use of two small turbos instead of one larger one, and no doubt this plays a role. But, given similar driveability in VW's 2.0-liter turbo four, I suspect that direct injection plays at least as large a role. When gas is directly injected into the cylinder under very high pressure, instead of being injected into the intake just above the valve, it is possible to employ a higher compression ratio. In this case, that ratio is 10.2:1, not far off the 10.7:1 of the normally aspirated engine in the 328i. In comparison, the compression ratio in Volvo's 300-horsepower R engine is 8.5:1, which is about average for a turbo engine without direct injection. A low compression ratio not only reduces off-boost performance, but contributes to duller responses. Between the VW 2.0 and BMW's new 3.0, I'm now a firm believer in the benefits of combining direct injection and turbocharging. I think we'll be seeing much more of this in the future.

Based entirely on my personal preferences, I drove a 335i with the manual transmission. Typical BMW shifter. Moderately long throws, but with a very positive feel and a touch of notchiness going into each gear. I'd prefer shorter throws, but not so much that an aftermarket short-throw kit would be a must.

It goes without saying that the brakes are powerful. BMW isn't going to issue a super-fast coupe without strong brakes.

All is not perfect in the broader braking system, though. The stability control was more obtrusive than that in the 330i. In the normally aspirated sedan, I found I could carry a lot fo speed into corners, and even drive a bit stupidly: the excellent stability control system would keep things within safe limits without killing the joy, making you feel like you're being a skilled driver even when you are not. In the 335i, on the other hand, the stability control in cut in quite easily and with a heavy hand. Even when I wasn't driving the car very hard I found myself with the power cut way back more than a few times. What gives? Is this engine so much more powerful that it's much easier to trip a second, killjoy level of the stability control? I did not experiment with the stability control off, as this is a powerful rear drive car that will no doubt instantaneously go sideways with an injudicious stab at the throttle. You'll want a bit more seat time than I had available before checking that out.

Aside from the stability control, the steering and handling of the 335i was virtually identical to that of the 330i sedan. This would be a bit of a disappointment, as a coupe should somehow be more special to drive than a sedan. Except that the sedan is a spectacularly good handler. Here again we have a superbly balanced chassis that is shockingly easy to drive well. Some cars you have to experiment with and think through in order to drive them well. Not this one. It's pretty much intuitive. The extra power from the turbo makes finding the perfect balance a bit more difficult, especially with the stability control all too willing to cut it, but just a bit. A few years back, BMW made the steering on the 3 overly light, again in pursuit of a broader market. Here as well they've reversed course. The 335i, like the current 330i, has moderately hefty steering. Great weighting, good feedback, you won't find a better system in more than a handful of cars. If that many.

I drove a 325i recently with an uncomfortably firm, busy ride. At the time I suspected that the tires must have been overinflated. Driving the 335i did nothing to allay this suspension. Even equipped with the sport package, which the 325i did not have, the ride was very comfortable for a car with sporting pretensions. Sure, you will feel a bump here and there, but no harshness.

I've long marvelled at the ride/handling compromise that BMW has been able to extract from MacPherson struts and conventional shocks. As it happens, the new 3 coupe might mark the end of this era: the new X5, and perhaps every new BMW from this point forward, will have an SLA front suspension and adaptive shocks. It seems that even BMW had reached the limits of the old approach.

BMW 335i Price Comparisons and Pricing (also 328i pricing)

Time to pay the piper, and this goodness is going to cost you. Opt for just leather and the Sport Package, and you're already at $43,745.

And yet this is only $3,400 more than last year's 225-horsepower 330Ci coupe. Adjust for the 2007's additional features, like standard Xenon lights and those nifty power bolsters, and the difference shrinks to $1,800. A suitable premium for the 2007's extra power and newer design? Without a doubt.

If you only need as much power as the 2006 car offered, there's the 230-horsepower 328i. Even with the HK audio and Premium Package, it'll run you about $400 more than the 330Ci, but nearly $1,900 less after adjusting for its additional features. As BMW's go, this is reasonable pricing. These days 230 horsepower might not sound like much. A Toyota Camry V6 offers considerably more. But, believe me, for most people, even most driving enthusiasts, it'll be plenty. And if you want more, another three large (plus another two if you don't care for the 335i's power seats and HK audio) will get you the 335i. Time was, BMW charged nearly twice as much for a much smaller bump in power.

An Infiniti G35 lists for about $9,300 less than a 335i. Even after adjusting for feature differences, the gap is still about $6,800. While it might now be easier to justify the higher price of the BMW, this is still a large difference.

Prices change frequently, and differences will vary based on feature level. To quickly generate these and other comparisons with the specific features you want, visit my Web site, www.truedelta.com. (It's the only site that provides true "apples-to-apples" price comparisons.)

TrueDelta's page for the BMW 3-Series:

http://www.truedelta.com/models/3-Series.php

Last Words

In most ways, perhaps too many ways, the 335i coupe is much like the 330i sedan. A sleeker, more innovative shape wouldn't hurt. But the real story here is the new twin-turbo six. It proves that, with direct injection and proper tuning, it is just about possible to eliminate the driveability issues that have traditionally plagued turbocharged engines. Before driving the car, I feared that BMW had sacrificed the things that made its engines special in pursuit of better numbers. Fortunately, these fears have proved groundless. I suspect this will just the be the first of many turbocharged engines from BMW, ironically just as Mercedes AMG unit is shifting back to normal aspiration.

A Note on BMW 335i Reliability (also 328i reliability)

I cannot practically cover reliability within the context of this review. However, many people are interested in such information, so I've started collecting my own data. Results, once they are available, will be posted to my site, www.truedelta.com, with updates every three months.

Unlike other sources, TrueDelta will clearly identify what difference it will make if you buy a 328i or 335i rather than another vehicle by providing "times in the shop" and "days in the shop" stats (among others). You will be able to specify the number of years, annual miles, and types of repairs to include in BMW 3-Series reliability comparisons.

Before I can report results, I need data on all cars--not just the 3-Series--from people like you. To encourage participation, those who help provide the data will receive free access to the site's reliability information. Non-participants will have to pay an access fee.

For the details, and to sign up, visit www.truedelta.com.

A link to this website and alphabetized links to my other vehicle reviews can be found on my profile page.

If you're an Epinions member, and you want to receive an email alert from Epinions when I post a new review, click here.

Some of my reviews of related vehicles:
Acura TL review
BMW 330i sedan review (a bit more comprehensive)
Infiniti G35 review (sedan)
Lexus IS 350 review