Generally great review mate. Point of note: M140 spec: Those “carbon wrap” exhaust tips aren’t a shadow edition feature and are aftermarket , the “m performance side skirts” are stickers (an option), that “red start / stop” on the interior is aftermarket. Handling: The chassis and suspension is the well documented achilles heal of the M140 - it’s a 1 series with a B58 dropped in. There are a load of mods you can do to improve the feel and confidence but it will never be (or inspire the confidence) of a full fat m car. It doesn’t come with the full fat m car tax though and as you say it is well refined and is an excellent daily for practically and fuel economy on long runs. Tunability makes it a fantastic platform. Add handling mods and an lsd and it’s a weapon. Probably the last 6 pot RWD super hatch. Pick one up for £20k, couple of hundred tuning and it will embarrass a lot more expensive cars.
Good review. I have owned a M140 for nearly 6 years. Only regret is I bought the 3 door. Before that I had an E90 M3, 4.0ltr NA V8. In a drag race to 100mph the M140 would blow away the M3.
The championship edition is the only M140i that came with a LSD as standard. The champ edition was a limited run of only 30 cars to commemorate BMW’s 2017 BTCC win.
Enjoyed the review and have subscribed to the channel. Still have a soft spot for these. Did a test drive in one a few years back but opted for the BMW 335d saloon instead. They are still on my radar thought and they look great. Went for the Xdrive in the end in order to put the power down without tailspin as seen a few reviews of these in the wet and thought, nah, too risky! Again, enjoyed the commentary in this video and it made me giggle when you said you could take your granny in one of these while you were bouncing up an down in your seat!
This is a three-door car. The pity is that BMW never worked that out. Their small 2-door car, the 2-series, has been a sales failure, which is why you only see M2/M240i. The three-door F21 doesn't have horrid postage-stamp side windows, nor those nasty rear-door windows whose ugliness is supported by the questionable pillar. The bottom side panel is different on the F21, so the black decal covers most of the panel and actually looks good. This looks so much better it should have been standard, but they didn't work this out either. White paint/red leather is the good combo. Two large F21 side windows are enhanced by a sunroof, and this is a vanishingly rare bodyshell, I'm told 1 in 1000. Here you get instant open/closed near-convertible status at any speed.
I have one myself and the only thing i hate about it is the noisy tappy tappy injectors especially between 1k and 2k sounds horrible especially if you driving closely next to something like a wall, and i actually prefer the car without the dif but other mods. The dif make you slide about more but its predictable
Funny you should ask that. I’ve just finished filming a FWD v RWD comparison using the Megane RS v M140. Video should be released in a couple of weeks 👍🏻
I can only go on the spec unfortunately but it wouldn’t be the first manufacturer to under estimate the power figures. JDM cars in the 90’s were notorious for producing their performance cars at the official 276bhp when everyone knew that the Skylines, Evo’s, STI’s were way above
