First Drive: 2021 M235i xDrive Gran Coupe Review

Sometimes in the car world, what begins as a marketing opportunity ends up as a highly desirable model that ticks all sorts of boxes no one had even identified. Sometimes this doesn’t happen – I give you the BMW 5 Series GT or the 2 Series Gran Coupe. BMW keeps shoehorning models into gaps that don’t seem to exist to the mortal eye.

But this chunky, muscular little four-door coupe looks and feels like a car that a lot of people might want. Meet the M235i xDrive Gran Coupe.

It is a design move away from the new 1 Series, sharing the same architecture and engines, and BMW says its customers will be 30-40-years-old, urban, part of a couple, successful and after recognition. They’ll be extroverts with “a high affinity with digital touchpoints”. They like their gadgets, then. BMW also says they’ll be overtly male, which I’d question – the combination of status symbol the badge affords, plus the wide stance of the car which gives it presence and makes it feel safer, its sporty slanted headlights, small footprint but room for four passengers and luggage plus high-high-tech interior screams women to me.

We tested the 220d diesel engine and M235 xDrive Gran Coupe on launch in Portugal, although the best seller in the UK will be the 1.5-litre, three-cylinder, 218i petrol which sadly wasn’t there.

The M235i swaps the front-wheel-drive of the 220d and 218i for BMW’s four-wheel-drive xDrive system. If you want to play around a bit, you can switch the traction control to its minimum setting, boot it in a corner (that artificial engine note remains a question of personal taste, but you do get an M Sport exhaust system on this flagship version) and the chassis will happily wriggle about like a dog having its tummy scratched, tyres scrubbing the tarmac.

This engine, the most powerful four-cylinder BMW has ever produced, has some serious performance credentials, with 306PS (225kW) and 450Nm (333lb ft) of torque. It propels itself to 62mph in 4.9 seconds, a bat squeak under the all-important five-second rule for sportscars.

The eight-speed automatic transmission is smartly suited to the engine’s character, the power hurtling through the drivetrain regardless, with changes happening in miliseconds. There’s launch control, if you can find enough space, and a limited-slip differential, plus a new bit of tech aims to radically reduce power understeer by braking on the inside of the bend before the talent envelope excels itself…

You get Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, with the ability to show the latter’s display in the head-up graphics. You get BMW’s Intelligent Assistant on M Sport trims levels, which includes gesture and voice control, both of which we would happily leave behind – gesture control responds when you’re simply gesturing at the passenger, and voice control doesn’t agree with half the stuff you want it to do. As my colleague in the car said, “The first thing I say to the voice control system is: Hey BMW! Turn off voice control.”

You can fill the car with optional packs for comfort and tech, until it’s full to the brim with every conceivable safety and technology aid.