Dear all.

<rant on>

'Car' magazine this month has a big collection of E46 road tests, including one comparing it with the Audi A4 and Alfa 156. Usual pretentious bollocks (vote for the Alfa with your heart, yadda yadda yadda, tug heartstrings, do it for the love of it, not the sense, put up with it falling to bits - possibly). They said - as they have always done - that if you're a 'nineties new man, maybe a single dad, eschew the excesses of the 'eighties but don't mind laying over thirty thousand quid into a 200 bhp German motor, wear small, thin-rimmed glasses and 'think' a lot, buy the A4 and peer sanctimoniously at hoi polloi in theIR 3ers (no offence to Audi pilots; this is media-driven rhetoric, not mine).

Despite the fact that the E36 328 (tested) spanked the A4 2.8 throughout its whole life, and the E46 is an improvement over the E36, the A4 won this particular round. Something about it being purer. 'Car' said the E46 wasn't better *enough* than the Audi to warrant 1st place - at least that was the message (go figure). Maybe they're losing ground to "Auto Trader". I don't know.

<rant off>

Bitter? No. Not when the Bimmer showed up to the test wearing a seriously lairy paint job and - wait for it - *factory* spec 8 x 18"s (really)!

They tested the 320 four-pot diesel and loved it, which gives you an even better idea of where 'Car' magazine is coming from.

And they had a spin in the 318i as well. Only thing complained about was the plastic steering wheel, which neither the UK nor the US - two of BMW's three biggest 3er markets - will get anyway (based on current E36 spec). Problem is, there was one shot of the car, kind of three-quarter view, where you couldn't see the front grill or bonnet (hood, sorry). Without looking at the centre cap on the wheel, I had no idea what car it was. It could have been anything.

Anybody else concerned by this anonymity? Or is BMW just responding to the uninterested attitude of the market?

Andrew T
'95 318is.