BMW 120 review: the (lower) power of one

The 120 has enough power to be fun yet still manages to be impressively frugal.

Sun, 13 Jul 2025

The BMW 1 Series hatch is one of those strange cars that, the lesser the model, the more genuinely engaging it is.I recently tested the M135 variant and was left feeling rather ambivalent about a car that, on paper, should tick most of my boxes, so to speak.A small hatch with big power (221kW) and a slick interior should, in theory at least, always make me happy, and add BMW’s unrepentantly enthusiast-based attitude towards being “the ultimate driving machine”, should make it instant love. But it didn’t. Sure,...

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