The first thing that struck me about this car is that it's by far the best-looking 1-Series I've yet driven. I wouldn't say it's the most attractive convertible on the market, but to me it's a lot easier on the eye than the hatchback. In particular, those over-large headlight units, which seem so out of place on the regular car, don't dominate the appearance of this one to anything like the same extent.If you really want the 1-Series Convertible to look its best you should fold the roof down. The roof is made of fabric rather than metal, so you can't describe the car as a coupé-convertible (BMW, like Audi, seems to mistrust that increasingly popular piece of technology), but unlike other similar arrangements you don't have to do any unhooking at the start of the process. Just prod a button on the centre console and let the electric motors do the job for you.As well as looking much better this way - and giving you the open-air motoring experience which of course is the whole point of the exercise - the alfresco version of the 1-Series also offers decent rear visibility. When the roof is up the three-quarter blind spots are large enough to warrant their own currency and governance, and you'll never be more thankful for parking sensors when you try to reverse.Convertibles are famous for being less structurally secure than cars with roofs, but BMW has done well to limit the effects of this. Oh, the driving experience isn't as impressive as it is in the hatchback, and there's a slight amount of jiggling on rougher surfaces, but the car remains an enjoyable tool for whisking along your favourite country roads.The one thing that really spoiled the experience for me was the gearchange, which was notchy and recalcitrant on the test car. BMW gearchanges have never been the world's best, but they have improved a lot in recent years, yet this one took me back to the bad old days, when it seemed as if the gearbox oil still hadn't warmed up properly even long after it must have done. It's possible that this was an unfortunate quirk of the test car and that most versions are better than this. I certainly hope so.This particular car is a 120d, which means that it has the higher-powered (177bhp) version of BMW's two-litre turbo diesel engine. It's a great unit - impressively powerful but also smooth and quiet in most circumstances - and I suspect it's the best one for the car, even if it doesn't have the same creamy delivery and stirring top-end roar of the six-cylinder petrol engines available in the 125i and 135i.With the diesel, you get a 0-62mph time of 8.1 seconds and a top speed of 138mph, which is probably as much performance as you need (especially if the whole reason for buying the car was to enjoy the combination of the BMW badge and the chance to drive along with the wind in your hair).Along with the performance, the 120d Convertible provides official combined fuel economy of 55.4mpg (let's say high-40s mpg in the real world) and a CO2 rating of 134g/km which means you won't pay more than £120 in VED over the next three years, unless of course the planned car tax structure revision turns out to be something completely different from what we've been told it's going to be.It's rare to find this kind of fuel economy with that kind of performance in a small convertible, and the reason is that the car benefits, as so many others do, from BMW's EfficientDynamics technology, the most obvious part of this being the Auto Stop-Start function which switches off the engine when the car comes to a halt and switches it back on again as soon as you press the clutch pedal.What all this means is that while you can romp along pretty smartly when you want to, you can also bask in the knowledge that your tax payments aren't going to be too stiff, that you're pumping less CO2 into the atmosphere than might otherwise be the case, and that you'll be able to go a long way between fuel stops. This is therefore a relatively cheap car to run, as well as being quite enjoyable to drive.It's not cheap to buy, though. There are three trim levels - ES, SE and M Sport - and the test car was an SE, with a price tag of £26,250 (add £1605 for the M Sport, subtract £1150 for the ES). Obviously nobody buys a new BMW because they couldn't find anything cheaper, but this still seems like a lot of money for what you get, especially since the interior is rather dull, with minor switchgear which in general would not have been regarded as adventurously-styled in the 1980s.Mind you, the inside of a 120d Convertible is still a nice place to be, at least if you're sitting in the front, where the seats are very comfortable and provide excellent side support for those times when you're giving it yee-ha through the corners.The rear seats look pretty good too, but I can't comment any further because there's so little room back there that I couldn't possibly fit in them. Still, the hatchback isn't any better in that respect, and it's unlikely that anyone will buy a 1-Series Convertible with the intention of carrying four people in it.Speaking of room, the Convertible has less luggage space than the hatchback. With the roof tucked in the boot there's 260 litres left over, and with the roof up the capacity increases to 305 litres, or 25 litres less than the hatchback. Again, though, this is hardly the sort of car you would consider if you needed to carry things around on a regular basis. Engine 1995 cc, 4 cylinders Power 177 bhp @4000 rpm Torque 258 ib/ft @1750 rpm Transmission 6 speed manual Fuel/CO2 55.4 mpg / 134 g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 8.1sec Top speed 138 mph Price From £27096.00 approx Release date 05/04/2008
Our Rating
