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"The 135is is our undisputed favorite BMW of the moment. Is it dramatically new? No. It&amp;#039;s one of the oldest cars in Munich&amp;#039;s stable, and it hasn&amp;#039;t changed significantly since the 135i debuted in 2008. Back then, it had the misfortune of being born in the shadow of the contemporary (E90-chassis) 3-series, which was the best car in its class by an autobahn mile and perhaps the best-driving sedan on earth. Now that we&amp;#039;ve had time to settle in with the E90&amp;#039;s bigger, softer, more disconnected replacement, the F30 Three, the E90-based 1-series reminds us just how good the old days really were. If the Bavarian Motor Wizards boiled down their brand to the stuff that made it legendary, a 135is badge would be floating at the bottom of the cauldron. That essence, made real, would be a compact coupe with tubby rear-wheel-drive proportions, just like the small Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties sport sedans that made BMW a household name. Its steering would be more accurate and more communicative than most anything else on the road. It would have a straight-six that saxophoned you a love song while assaulting the rear tires with obscene force. It would be a luxury car by virtue of its engineering, ergonomics, and materials\u2014not because it was swaddled in expensive hides or festooned with tech gimmickry. Best of all, that car would speak to people who genuinely love driving, not pander to the masses of clueless consumers who influence J.D. Power ratings. This is the stuff of details: In the 135is, you can use your left hand to access the steering-wheel-mounted volume control, your right free to move the shift lever. You can operate the cruise control without taking your eyes off the road because it&amp;#039;s controlled by a stalk, not the wheel-mounted buttons found on other cars (and that will be found on all future BMWs), which you have to look at to use.   It&amp;#039;s also a matter of larger focus. The 135is doesn&amp;#039;t have a single &amp;quot;Sport&amp;quot; button in its cockpit, because a proper sports coupe doesn&amp;#039;t need a button to tell it when to be sporty. The addition of an &amp;quot;s&amp;quot; to the rear emblem doesn&amp;#039;t mean much\u2014this car is essentially the old 135i Sport package, replete with six-piston front brakes, sport suspension, and an aero body kit. The single-turbo straight-six motivating the 135i since 2011 gets an additional 20 hp and 17 lb-ft of torque, an upgrade that&amp;#039;s been available through BMW&amp;#039;s accessory catalog for more than a year. And it has an exhaust that begs you to leave the door open when you start it in the morning, just so you can hear it. Forget Folgers; the best part of waking up is the prospect of setting off car alarms when you light off your 135is before work. The performance exhaust has what we like to think of as pretend mufflers. They pretend to quiet down the engine&amp;#039;s roar, and your rich neighbor will pretend that the little BMW doesn&amp;#039;t sound as potent as his Ferrari.  Can you feel the engine&amp;#039;s slight (just six percent) power bump? Not really, but then the 135i never wanted for power. The 135is threatens to roast its rear tires all the way through first gear, screaming to 60 mph in 4.6 seconds\u20140.2 second quicker than the original twin-turbo 135i. The remainder of the package is classic 1-series: fatigue-proof, adjustable-bolster sport seats; a perfect driving position; great brake feel; a deliciously thick-rimmed miniature steering wheel; and a stubby, accurate shifter.   Our complaints about the original 135i remain: It could use more suspension travel, it understeers way more than we&amp;#039;d like, and it desperately needs a limited-slip differential to tame the one-tire fire you get in tight corners. Those problems are easily fixed by purchasing one of the 2011 1-series M Coupes that BMW sold in the United States. Good luck finding someone stupid enough to part with theirs (only 739 were sold, and most didn&amp;#039;t linger in a showroom); in the meantime, the 135is is as close as your BMW dealer currently comes to selling one.  But there&amp;#039;s a bigger point here. The 1-series is the last car that BMW engineered before the Germans, as a car-making culture, fell out of love with driving. The 3-series, which used to make so much more sense than the 1, is now a perfectly nice car that barely registers on the fun-to-drive scale. Like most new German cars, it focuses too much on electronics and the eventuality of a driverless future. It errs toward isolation where BMWs have traditionally favored refinement and engagement. It offers more in the way of electronic cockpit gadgets than feedback. Even the 135is&amp;#039;s replacement, the European-market M135i, has the nerve to wear an M badge but with zero additional M chops. It&amp;#039;s the next generation of the car you see here, in hatchback form, with a version of the F30&amp;#039;s numb electric steering and no limited-slip differential. Worse, like the current M5, its cockpit is so isolated and quiet that you can&amp;#039;t really hear the engine. (Also like the M5, the M135i plays fake engine noises through the stereo\u2014a questionable trick to play on luxury-minded 5-series drivers, but unacceptable forgery in an M-badged 1-series.) Most disturbing of all, Munich seems to have walked away from the very thing responsible for its success: the compact sports sedan. Right when Audi and Mercedes-Benz are about to jump into the market with the upcoming A3 and CLA\u2014both of which are intriguing in spite of being front-wheel drive\u2014BMW has nothing compelling to offer.   The 135is and the cars that came before it explain why BMW means more, to more enthusiasts, than any other brand. The Bavarians could slap sedan- and wagon-shaped four-door bodies on this car, call it the new 3-series, and it would easily remain the best car on the road for another decade. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/road-tests/reviews/a3984/road-test-my-blue-heaven-bmw-135is/>