Nevertheless, additionally, you will discover that there’s no conventional gearstick, and that’s as a result of the 128ti is obtainable solely with an Aisin eight-speed torque-converter computerized gearbox. BMW claims the gearing for any guide would have needed to have been overly lengthy for emissions exams and that market analysis exhibits that uptake could be minimal. There’s most likely fact in these statements, however the reality is that the 128ti purports to be a ‘correct’ scorching hatch, but you may’t have it with three pedals. And in gentle of that, you could be left questioning simply how ‘correct’ it may be.
Properly, in some respects, it’s very correct certainly; and in others, slightly underwhelming. First, BMW has been courageous with this automotive, nailing its colors to the mast within the type of the passive dampers. Ought to the chassis really feel too tender on again roads, there’s no push-button rescue service to boost the extent of management. Equally, if BMW’s set-up seems like skateboarding down cobbled streets once you’re on the motorway, that’s your lot.
Thankfully, an unusually positive stability has been struck. And whereas there’s some low-speed jostle that may typically really feel solely simply the suitable aspect of punishing (please, stick with the 18in alloys), when you’ve bought some pace up and begun to work the dampers, the 128ti flows with what may very well be referred to as ‘forgiving poise’.
It’s nearly precisely the mix of consolation and management that I would like in a scorching hatch: severe sufficient that the automotive instantly feels lean and toothy and succesful sufficient to cope with Britain’s frequent crests and troughs with out making your coronary heart skip a beat, but additionally compliant sufficient to reside with every day.
Overlaid on that is the revised steering, the gearing for which is measured with out ever feeling ponderous. It’s a world away from the frenetic rack within the Renault Mégane RS, though nonetheless crisply responsive across the dead-ahead and, thereafter, extra convincingly weighted than that of the Golf GTI. (It’s greatest left in Consolation mode; Sport is simply too artificially heavy.)
Its total impact is to offer the 128ti an fulfilling sense of dimension-shrinking precision, which is gratefully acquired within the period of hatchbacks nearly as extensive as an early Lamborghini Countach.
As for the engine, it’s simpler than participating. The B48 2.0-litre is now well-known, its undersquare design packing a uniformly highly effective, if barely laggy, punch that does a lot to push you ahead from 2000rpm upwards however little to tug in your heartstrings. It’s well-matched to the gearbox, although, whose shifts are crisp and, in Sport mode, theatrically forceful.
