NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ont: Renewing your neurotic affiliations is the way one of my heroes, Woody Allen, described going back to the place where you grew up.
You make this trip back in time for two reasons, it seems to me -- to reconnect to your roots or to use your current reality to take an axe to those roots.
This is why I got slightly off route between Toronto and this southern-most part of Canada (same latitude as Rome, Italy, they like to tell you) and took the BMW 328Ci coupe along Beach Boulevard in Hamilton.
Ideally, I wanted to run into some girl who wouldn't go out with me in high school and have her recognize me in the lovely gold car, particularly if she were getting off the bus after visiting the laundromat. This did not happen, of course, but I did see the now-elderly mother of a cheerleader from my high school, who never had a kind word for me when I was mooning after her daughter but who had an appreciative smile for me in the $50,000 car.
That was good enough, so I smiled and nodded and left for the charms of this little town at the foot of the Niagara River, which has the world-class Shaw Festival theatre as well as some world-class wineries and is therefore rightly known as Napa with Culture.
On the way there, I once again wondered over the reasons that people buy certain cars. A lot of the compulsion comes from the need for the car to be an extension of your vision of yourself, and for that there isn't much that beats a BMW. To that end, people have been buying them even when they had their faults, which brings me to the previous 3-series line. Though it had class-beating dynamics, it was cramped and noisier by far than it should have been for the money.
Well, I am happy to say that those caveats no longer apply to the 3-series in either coupe or sedan, but particularly the coupe. Both have much better noise, vibration and harshness quality, but the coupe has the bigger front doors necessary to allow rear seat access and that makes front seat access so much better. So that's why I'd go for a coupe.
You pay more money for a coupe, but it also has a hipper image than a sedan. Four doors suggests you may have to carry extra people for work purposes, but two doors says you're only worried about pleasing yourself and maybe a significant other. These are important signals, or can be to some people.
But since it would be impossible for me to explain the psychological attractions of a BMW 3-series coupe, perhaps I should stick to the engineering, technical and styling reasons.
On that last point, BMW is not known for taking giant leaps of fancy with its core cars; the theory has always been to move the needle by making the new car look like a refined version of the old car, and it's worked wonders for their sales.
So the 2000 3-series looks a lot like the 1999 model, and that's okay. It can be handsome with the right exterior colour.
Inside, everything is even more refined, which is what it needed to be. The old car tended to squeak and rattle too much for any car, let alone one in this price range. Munich has addressed many of those faults, so the 3-series now behaves in a more polished fashion and will therefore be more appealing on a quotidian basis.
It is also less expensive than the previous 3-series when you factor in the cost of ownership. But first, the sticker prices: the 323Ci starts at $38,900 and the 328Ci at $46,900. (This Ci designation is a change from the past few years and has not been used in North America for decades, but it's used everywhere else around the world and BMW Canada's new boss likes the idea of using it here, so there you are.)
Those prices are still not low, but they're comparable to what the 3-series has carried in the past. Beyond that, these cars are better than the ones they replaced, come with more equipment and, most importantly, cost about 30 per cent less to maintain over the years. That, as any existing Bimmer owner can tell you, is a significant amount of money.
BMW Canada now pays for maintenance during the 3-year warranty period and beyond the warranty the costs are less because the car needs less scheduled work.
Since most of the people who buy Bimmers actually lease them, it's worth noting that $5000 down gets you a 323Ci for $482 a month for 36 months or a 328Ci for $590 for 36 months, with neither fee including taxes.
Both models feature inline-6 engines and both of those engines enjoy the real benefits provided by variable valve timing, which in BMW's case goes by the double-VANOS nickname. Essentially, variable valve-timing allows the engine to respond to the current situation instead of having the engine designed to work best in a certain set of circumstances.
The result is better response to all the driving demands you are likely to make, thanks mostly to the appearance of up to 90 per cent of the maximum torque between idle and 3000 rpm, which is where most of the normal North American driving is done.Speaking of torque, the 323Ci delivers 181 pound-feet at 3500 rpm and the 328Ci does 206 at 3500 rpm. Their horsepower numbers, respectively, are 170 and 193, both of which come at 5500 rpm.
At this point, I could embark on a long and satisfying list of changes and upgrades and refinements that BMW has made to the 3-series coupe, but perhaps I should leave something for the sales person to do.
Let me just say that this is the best, most responsive, best handling and slickest 3-series BMW the world has ever been offered, and that kind of reality is bound to work wonders with those neurotic affiliations.
