BMW 323i 2007 News

In his 15 years at BMW, the Munich car maker's US-born head of design has overseen the creation of some of the industry's most admired and imitated, if controversial, cars.

The Japanese car maker now owns a massive 21.9 per cent of the market, a rise of 0.6 per cent compared with the corresponding period last year.Australia's leading seller has surged to 91,984 sales to the end of May compared with 82,227 for the first five months of last year.Toyota is driving the industry to continued forecasts that more than a million vehicles will be sold for the first time in a calendar year in Australia.The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries has nominated an annualised rate (SAAR) of 1.022 million vehicles for 2007.Chief contributors to Toyota's booming figures are the four-cylinder Camry while the 4 x 2 and 4 x 4 variants of the HiLux have recorded huge jumps along with the Yaris and the introduction of the V6 Aurion.Significantly, since improved supply, the petrol/electric Prius has more than doubled on 2006 figures with 1333 sold to the end of May compared with 625 for the same period last year.Toyota continues to punch above the performance of the total market.“Our aspirations are always to grow bigger than the market,” Toyota Australia chairman Emeritus John Conomos said at the launch recently of the 10th generation Corolla.“No one has ever achieved 25 per cent of the market in modern times before.“It's probably not achievable this year but it's a goal worth setting.”Holden remains in Toyota's shadow. It has increased sales from 60,792 to 61,863 year-on-year, but its market share is down from 15.7 to 14.8 per cent.Ford is a clear number three but has slipped almost 5000 sales year-on-year and has lost 2 per cent market share which now stands at 10.5 per cent.Mitsubishi continues to claw its way back and is moving up on Nissan in a fight for fifth spot.Those models selling well for Mitsubishi have been the Lancer, Outlander, Pajero and the Triton 4 x 4 although the model which the Adelaide maker has staked its future on, the 380, has declined from 5176 to 4641 in year-on-year figures.On the luxury front, BMW recorded its second successive monthly record with 1497 vehicles finding owners, taking its year-to-date tally to 6462.What has been a massive seller for BMW has been the new hardtop 3-series convertible and coupe with combined sales standing at 1170 compared with 313 this time last year.While sales of the X5 Sport Utility Vehicle remain robust and Z4 convertible and coupe sales have grown by a massive 49.4 per cent it is the two-door 3-series models which have allowed BMW to gain significant market momentum.BMW customer deliveries last month were 11.7 per cent higher than May 2006, adding an extra 157 units to last May's record figure.Volkswagen, the only European importer to make the top 10 list, has lifted its year-on-year volume share to 2.6 per cent from 1.9 per cent with sales topping 10,918 to the end of May.

It takes a quantum mind shift to accept a station wagon as a lifestyle accessory rather than life's grim necessity — a symbol, indeed, that your life is essentially over. Never mind that such a vehicle is just what you require to cart about the fruits of your loins, it's difficult to project an aura of virility or availability in what is essentially an advertisement for prophylactics. Or so it was with wagons. It helps that they're now known by all manner of marketing euphemisms: sportwagon, touring, estate, avant. Anything other than "station wagon", with its attendant images of suburban suffocation. With this grim mantle having been inherited by the SUV, wagons in the entry-level prestige segment are becoming perilously close to fashionable. The newest executive iterations from Europe and Japan are as departed from the Falcodore hacks given to fleet and taxi drivers as a Bally loafer is from a Blundstone boot. Moreover, they're often more pleasing to the eye than their sedan siblings. One such is the recently released BMW 3 Series Touring. The late, lamented E46 3 Series range also had but one Touring model: an automatic whose old 2.2-litre engine behaved more like a four-cylinder than one of Bimmer's brilliant inline sixes. Its E90 successor — for which the lapsed 323i designation has been revived — gets a choice of six-speed auto or manual (which no one will buy) transmissions and a detuned version of the 2.5 straight six from the 325i sedan. Detuned, in fact, from all of 160kW/250Nm to a distinctly four-ish figure of 130kW and 230Nm. It hasn't been so much neutered as urbanised, but if you forked over $71,500 (for the auto, $2600 off for the manual no one's going to buy) you'd be entitled to feel aggrieved. Reaching 100km/h in a claimed nine seconds — with the kilometre coming up in 29.7 — the auto Touring is respectable rather than rapid. And you'll need to make use of the ZF gearbox's sport mode to approximate those times — the Touring's 1500kg is never more in evidence than when getting off the mark in Drive. More significantly, this heft doesn't cause garment-rending at the petrol pump — both the claimed open-road and urban-consumption figures of 6.9 and 13.2 litres per 100km are, if anything, slightly pessimistic. The Touring has all the 3Series's inherent handling excellence, with BMW's trademark near-50/50 weight distribution coupled with rear-wheel drive. It can be both a benign daily drive and an incisive handler, able to deal with any sharp manoeuvre this side of sanity (enhanced by the Dynamic Stability Control and a vast array of electronic safety aids) while feeling exceptionally planted. It's a BMW — so one expects no less. Even ride quality on the 323i's standard-issue run-flat tyres is better than tolerable on 16- inch rubber. Bigger wheels are one item on the typically long and expensive options list that you needn't tick. Touring ownership is, of course, about facility, and this the 323i has. The tailgate, for example, splits so access can be had by way of the glass pane without the "effort" of opening the whole thing. Nice. So too are the provisions for secure oddment storage, not least beneath the floor — where, in most comparable cars, resides a full-size spare. Not sure if those cubbyholes are included in the total luggage space figure of 1385 litres (with rear seats folded), but it's such a comfort to know there's room in the boot for another few bots, what? Standard kit is comparable with that in the 320i Executive sedan. It includes leather trim, retractable centre armrests in both front and rear (quite good, these), storage nets on the backs of the front seats and an anti-dazzle rear-view mirror. The near roof-length sunroof, which brightens the lot of rear-seat travellers (but diminishes the driver's head space) adds $2900. Dip further into the optionals, let alone the $5200 MSports kit, and you're looking at an easy $80K on the road. Whether or not you consider such a sum just a bit silly depends entirely on the store you set by the fabled blue-and-white roundel. Some other prestige wagons offer much more equipment and performance for a lot less money, but none of them boast that badge. So if 3 Series ownership isn't purely a matter of dollars and cents, the stylish, practical Touring makes at least a degree of sense. See the picture gallery above for a wider view of the market.