Today’s car of the day is one of the greatest COTD’s ever and that is a car that isn’t out yet. When you obsess over cars and it seems like you want a new car every day, the car that has not been released yet is an attractive option.
A former COTD is the BMW 135i. It is the little brother to the BMW 3 Series. It is powered by the same 300hp twin-turbocharged engine that drives the 335i. This engine has a bit of reputation of being underrated, significantly underrated. When the 335i’s first started showing for road tests with the automotive media, car journalists were incredulous at the numbers this “300hp” sedan was putting up. So there were several well documented dyno tests of the 335i and the net results of the tests showed that BMW was underselling the performance of the new engine. It was not uncommon for the cars to show 300hp at the wheels meaning it really had about 350hp at the crank.
Why would BMW under-promise by 50hp? My theory is that the previous generation 333hp M3 was sitting in the showroom at the same time that the BMW 335i hit the floor. This meant that if BMW really advertised the true horsepower rating of the 335i it would have more hp than the almighty M3. Thus they over promised and under delivered.
I said all of that to say this that the BMW 135i has a special edition car coming out soon. The BMW 135i tii, is an homage to the great 2002 tii, in execution and theory. The tii is a lightweight, turbo-charged, small coupe that continues to perpetuate the brand that is the Ultimate Driving Machine.
