No, an F30 is not a baby brother of the Ferrari F40 and F50. It’s a BMW.
It’s like this. BMW has been giving the cars in its model portfolio standardised names so customers and drivers can easily recognise their segmentation. For a long time BMW offered a 3-Series, a 5-Series and a 7-Series. Nowadays there are 1-Series and 6-Series as well, as well as a bunch of terrain and sporty variations on these. Where other carmakers have made use of the term ‘Mark’ or ‘Mk’ to designate generations of a model, BMW has used E-codes for decades.
BMW is now at the sixth generation of the 3-Series and has consecutively gone through the E21, E30, E36, E46 and E90 since the introduction of the first ‘Dreier’ in 1975. Other models have used a lot of the numbers in between and it seems they now ran out of E-numbers. The new 5-Series is the F10, the new 1-Series the F20 and, you’ve guessed it, the new 3-Series is the F30. The sixth generation of the BMW 3-Series was launched as a saloon earlier this year. I’m a great admirer of its looks, but I’ve spilled tears about the loss of the six-cylinder engine in the 328i.
I’ll repeat myself, at the expense of sounding fanatic and conservative: a proper BMW should be fitted with a straight six. The sexy-sounding and smooth-running engines have been a part of BMW heritage for ages and have been continually developed to become a sublime product and a joy for those motorists fortunate to run one. Unfortunately they spit out too much CO2 for EU standards and so they’re a dying breed, excepting in the top-of-the-food-chain motorisations of BMW’s line-up.
Anyway, I will not bore you further with my sadness and pain. I wanted to share some good news about the F30 instead: it was given some firm hindquarters. In other words, BMW has announced the coming of the Touring – that’s BMW-speak for wagon or station. They are some nice buttocks as well! Dads married to mums that demand space and volume for diaper transportation purposes will be pleased they can soon resort to the sporty brand from Bavaria again. In fact, with 495 litres it’s a bit bigger than its competitors with the four rings and the star.
The F30 Touring will be introduced in September, at which time customers will have a pick from three engines, one gasoline and two diesels: the 328i, 320d and 330d respectively.
Only the latter is a six cylinder, but unfortunately it’s a diesel. A smooth ‘sixy’ petrol version is not in the pipeline yet.
