We picked up our BMW M140i Shadow Edition just over 12 months ago, so how has it performed as our lead tour car?
We chose ‘poverty spec white’ for our little M140i, it’s stealthy and doesn’t grab too much attention on the roads, which is a good thing when it spends a fair amount of time on ‘spirited drives’. The five door was our preferred flavour for convenience – as a tour car there’s ‘stuff’ being thrown in an out of the car far too frequently for a three door. Plus the extra doors just add to that stealthy look.In the past 12 months we’ve covered 15k miles which includes a road trip to Ireland, several drive days in the Peak District, North and South Wales, and 2 European Road Trips. On all drives it’s been faultless, frugal, fast and fun.With 340bhp under the bonnet it’s fast enough to keep up with most things on the road. OK it can’t keep pace at the top end with supercars on an Autobahn, but then it costs about £70k less than a supercar will set you back. And yes it could do with an LSD on it for the twistiest of twisty mountain passes but that’s where the BMW M2 comes in, and that’s an extra £10k and doesn’t have quite the practicality of the M140i.We’ve made a few small modifications to our BMW M140i, starting with a set of H&R Springs coupled with spacers front and back. Fitted by Project Three in Manchester the springs have tightened the handling a touch along with bring a visual enhancement to the car, all without any change to the comfort levels. Then we took the car AC Speetdtech for some tweaking to the alignment. Next we headed to APM Customs in Deeside for some custom graphics – nothing too wild, just some stylish decals on each side. Finally we fitted a new exhaust centre section provided by BCS, to bring some life to the car aurally – essential through those European tunnels!On long journeys it a comfortable place to be, pop on the cruise control and you can see 35mpg as a guide. When you hit the twisty mountain roads and flick the sport / sport + button the fun begins with the 3 litre straight six engine pushing power to the back wheels. The only time the car looses it’s composure is on a bumpy B-road when at pace – something we’ll be looking into improving.It’s safe to say that the BMW M140i has had a great first 12 months of it’s life, it’s suited our needs of a tour car very much and we’ve enjoyed every single drive in it. We’re very much looking forward to another road trip season in 2019 – fancy joining us?
