'Tis better to have loved and lost our BMW 330i...

Without even trying, our 330i has become the benchmark against all other vehicles in our captured fleet. Every time I drive it home, be it for a night or a week, the exceptional competence of the car makes almost everything else feel a decade or more behind. I know, I know, a lot of people think BMW has somehow greased the palms of automotive journalists to use such blatant hyperbole when describing its products, but I can tell you that simply is not the case. In fact, unlike most other enthusiast outlets who receive their long-term test cars through year-long loans from the company which builds and promotes them, we bought our 2006 BMW 330i right off the lot like you would.

Back to the car. So why is it that people in my position so often praise the products from BMW? Because they deserve it. Not because they often cost more than their competitors, not for what they say about the person driving them, and certainly not we're obligated to like them. In a nutshell, nothing else drives like a BMW does -- especially the bread-and-butter-earning 3 Series. There's an uncommon harmony built into the car that's difficult to put into words. Which is why when a BMW (fill-in-the-blank) "wins" a comparison test despite less-expensive, perhaps faster and more nimble contestants, we receive no small amount of grief from readers like you. Hey, that's fair, but until you've spent a serious amount of seat time in as many vehicles as we have, your protests often reveal that the car you, in fact, bought with your hard-earned dollars didn't win and you're sore about that. Be that as it may, we tell it like it is, lumps and all.

The reason the 330i is so good is in the way all of the driver's controls work together. When combined, the 330i's steering, suspension, brakes, engine, clutch, transmission, and even driving position are plainly intended provide a cohesive experience designed with a driver who enjoys driving in mind. Nearly every Porsche I've ever driven, as well as recent Ferraris, and one Lamborghini to date possesses a similar "they know how to do this" quality. Perhaps that's the key. The people who design and engineer cars like our 330i actually care about how the car feels to drive. BMW has also been criticized for Spartan, utilitarian, even dark and dour interiors, but when was the last time you heard anybody ever criticizing one for the way it drives?

I've been fortunate enough to have instrument-tested over 1,000 vehicles in my ten-year career (driven maybe twice that number). There's nothing more fulfilling than running a car through the gears, or pitching it through the slalom, or pushing it around a race track for the first time and instantly feeling that somebody else at the factory had already done it. Not just once to see what numbers it might produce, but repeatedly to ensure that it not only made the number, but also so that the experience was a good one -- perhaps even better than anything else in its peer group -- and that my friends is how and why BMWs consistently earn the respect of sods like me who drive cars for a living and tell you what I like and don't like. I love the way our BMW 330i drives and other car companies would be well served to buy their own and use them as benchmarks for "the experience of driving." Never mind trying to beat one to sixty, that's easy. Try to beat the BMW's reputation -- that's the hard part.
 
Chris Walton Chief Road Test Editor
23,607 miles