BMW 123d
I must admit that I'm a BMW fan. However shallow it might seem, it's true.
So when booking this summer a rent car I certainly didn't have any second thoughts on the brand. I decided to be practical and booked the tiniest BMW in production (except for Mini, which is BMW in fact) 1st series. I was not expecting much from the practical 5 door hatchback, and certainly was not hoping for anything exiting, but still wanted to drive in a beemer new for me, as before I drove only 3rd and 5th series. So I was really pleased when I got the key from the agency counter and found out that next 8 days I'll be driving the fastest diesel first series with all possible options including M-pack which even makes this car look good. It also was equipped with beautiful 18 inch wheels with wide tyres and the handling of this little thing is just brilliant. Manual gear box together with top of the line 2 liter bi-turbo diesel producing more than 200 bhp and less than 1.5 tons of weight make this creature furious. So certainly I can't help posting some pictures of the vehicle.
The car has so called keyless entry system which is pretty convenient, all you need is to have this thing in your pocket. You just approach the vehicle open the door, depress clutch, push the start button and off you go.
BMW disregards freaky Opel
Interior is nice but strict. There are no any signs of luxury of any kind. Everything is kind of sporty and technical.
Seats with pronounced side support.
Standard BMW red dash, unfortunately as a lot of newer models without coolant temperature gauge.
Fortunately wipers controls are still the same and very efficient even if you don't use automatic mode.
M badges all around.
Onboard computer system screen
And very very efficient tyres
And with all this, the greatest thing about the car is that it's also fuel efficient. With European gas and diesel prices it's nice to know that even pressing your foot down all the time at the traffic lights or on the highway you just cant do more than 10 liters per 100 km, which is 23 mpg, which is I guess not bad for 200+ bhp.
The bad thing is that this car is kind of made for good roads, which decrease it's value in terms of driving it in Russia. It doesn't even have a spare, as it's equipped with runflat tires which are kind of hard to fix in Russia, except for Moscow probably, as these tires are not really wide spread in Russia at all.
So when booking this summer a rent car I certainly didn't have any second thoughts on the brand. I decided to be practical and booked the tiniest BMW in production (except for Mini, which is BMW in fact) 1st series. I was not expecting much from the practical 5 door hatchback, and certainly was not hoping for anything exiting, but still wanted to drive in a beemer new for me, as before I drove only 3rd and 5th series. So I was really pleased when I got the key from the agency counter and found out that next 8 days I'll be driving the fastest diesel first series with all possible options including M-pack which even makes this car look good. It also was equipped with beautiful 18 inch wheels with wide tyres and the handling of this little thing is just brilliant. Manual gear box together with top of the line 2 liter bi-turbo diesel producing more than 200 bhp and less than 1.5 tons of weight make this creature furious. So certainly I can't help posting some pictures of the vehicle.
The car has so called keyless entry system which is pretty convenient, all you need is to have this thing in your pocket. You just approach the vehicle open the door, depress clutch, push the start button and off you go.
BMW disregards freaky Opel
Interior is nice but strict. There are no any signs of luxury of any kind. Everything is kind of sporty and technical.
Seats with pronounced side support.
Standard BMW red dash, unfortunately as a lot of newer models without coolant temperature gauge.
Fortunately wipers controls are still the same and very efficient even if you don't use automatic mode.
M badges all around.
Onboard computer system screen
And very very efficient tyres
And with all this, the greatest thing about the car is that it's also fuel efficient. With European gas and diesel prices it's nice to know that even pressing your foot down all the time at the traffic lights or on the highway you just cant do more than 10 liters per 100 km, which is 23 mpg, which is I guess not bad for 200+ bhp.
The bad thing is that this car is kind of made for good roads, which decrease it's value in terms of driving it in Russia. It doesn't even have a spare, as it's equipped with runflat tires which are kind of hard to fix in Russia, except for Moscow probably, as these tires are not really wide spread in Russia at all.