Reviews

Utility and sport, in perfect balance

"This is a beautiful river," I said perceptively as we motored upstream on a touring boat between a pair of craggy, lovely rock cliffs right out of a German Romantic painting from the 19th century. "Our route book says it’s the Donau. It’s such a picturesque river, I wonder why I haven’t read more about it?"

"We call it the Danube," said a tourist from California kindly, without a hint of scorn in his voice. An act of some skill.

"Ah, yes…" I said….

It was not exactly blue, as Strauss had promised, but the water looked fairly clean. This was supposed to be one of the most polluted rivers in Europe, yet bathers swam on sandbars along the shore and small panfish darted among the rocks at Weltenburg Monastery where we stopped for lunch. Apparently, the Donau has improved.

And so have a few other things in Germany. Specifically, the market for upscale sporty station wagons, which is what we had come here to drive.

BMW’s first wagonlike creation, the 02 Touring of 1971–1974, was not a resounding sales success and put the company off wagons for more than a decade. But the 3 Series Touring introduced in 1988 did well, and the second-generation 3 Series wagon, introduced in 1995, has been gathering steam ever since.

BMW now has 10 percent of the world market in "luxury estate" wagons, but is hoping for 20 percent. Their weapon in this quest is the redesigned 3 Series Sport Wagon, or "Touring," as it’s called in the European market. Europe will have a variety of drivetrain options available, but we will get only the 323i version, as BMW doesn’t want to position it too close, pricewise, to the 5 Series in this country.

And what will it cost in the U.S.? "Under $30,000," said BMW’s Rob Mitchell, to a great hubbub of huzzahs and approval from the gathered press, as we are all used to being made to bleed from the ear with auditory sticker shock. And when? "It’ll be here in the spring of 2000."

How does the car work? Well, we can’t tell you exactly, because BMW didn’t have a 323i ready for the world press intro when we got to Munich, only the 328i, which of course has a 2.8-liter 24-valve inline-6 rated at 193 bhp, while the 323 version we’re getting has a 2.5-liter (go figure) 24-valve inline-6 rated at 170 bhp. In other words, we drove a slightly hotter version in Germany than we will see here, but virtually everything else will be the same. In any case, BMW says all the 3 Series wagons will exceed 200 km/h (about 120 mph), so none is exactly a slug.

Suspension, which is shared with the European 5 Series wagon, is compliant yet sporting, exhibiting no undue harshness on Bavaria’s undulating farm roads. The wagon has excellent ride quality and crisp steering, the equal of the sedan’s. BMW says the slightly longer wheelbase gives the car a nearly perfect 50/50 weight distribution (with slight variations for different engine packages), with slightly improved balance and cornering ability over the sedan. It is also said to have superior uphill traction in snow. Switchable Dynamic Stability Control, which uses brake pressure to prevent critical oversteer, will be standard on U.S. models.

Visually, the wagon shares the sedan’s sheet metal all the way to the B-pillar; the rear doors and of course the tail are different. The new model distinguishes itself from the old with more rounded, subdivided taillights, a rear spoiler at the end of the sloping roofline and a raised lip around the rear bumper to further reduce turbulence.

By Peter Egan