When we stop in a quiet corner of the
estate to have a poke around in the 3GT’s world behind the driver, the car’s
strengths shine through. And they need to; in the cold light of day, the 3GT
really is a 3-series Touring with a bigger boot and roomier back seating,
whatever the marketing men might tell you. The sheer volume of space in the
rear cabin will be alien to anyone who has spent a decent amount of time in the
back of a 3-series. There’s significant legroom and enough headroom for a
six-footer, traits that combine with a level of luxury and comfort to make it
suitable for three adults on a long journey.

It
behaves just like a 3-series, especially on M Sport dampers
There’s plenty of room for their luggage in
the 520-liter boot, too. That capacity rises to 1600 liters with the rear seats
folded. These figures are not too far off the 560 and 1670 liters of the
5-series Touring, which has a considerably larger footprint.
But all this space comes at a cost. The 3GT
will cost you about $1,950 more than a Touring, which is already $1,950 more
than the equivalent saloon. When you look at these prices, it’s clear that the
3GT is unlikely to tempt business users out of their saloons. Rather, it must
convince those who use the saloon and Touring as family cars that the extra
space is worth having.

There’s
plenty of room for their luggage in the 520-liter boot, too. That capacity
rises to 1600 liters with the rear seats folded.
History is littered with examples of space
being perhaps the least successful trait around which to build a car. How many
Vauxhall Vectra buyers forked out the extra to buy a Signum, for example? And
the 3GT hardly answers the current trend for downsizing; people want more for
less, not more for more. What BMW has done here, though, regardless of the
cost, is execute the original brief. It has successfully created a 3-series
that gains more in space than is taken away in the dynamics, following its rise
in size and weight, even if the price is bigger to go with it. Whether it is a
niche or indeed a 3-series that needed finding and making will come down to
whether the market really ‘gets’ it, whether it is a good car or not.

The
rear bench will house three adults in long-haul comfort
Recent motoring history shows us that more
niches are being found and more cars made to fill them – including by BMW –
than ever before, but with mixed success. For every Nissan Qashqai or Range Rover
Evoque, there is a Mercedes-Benz R-class or Renault Avantime.
Or a 5GT, for that matter. A spacious
luxury car sounds nice on paper, but the market didn’t really want that. It’s
outsold by the 7-series by three to one, and even the hugely controversial X6
sold twice the number that the 5GT did last year. Only six per cent of 5-series
sold are 5GTs.
The 3GT’s formula looks even better on
paper than the 5GT’s, and it has been executed far better here than its bigger
sibling, if still not perfectly. But it’s the market that will decide whether
or not the 3GT becomes a longer-term fixture in the 3-series line-up than the
Compact hatchback, which lasted just seven years. Or, indeed, the Heygate
Estate, which is now decaying ahead of its planned demolition in 2015 to make
way for another 2500 new homes.

The
3GT’s formula looks even better on paper than the 5GT’s, and it has been
executed far better here than its bigger sibling, if still not perfectly.
There seems to be no middle ground with
cars like the 3GT. They’re either instantly understood, like the Qashqai and
Evoque, and sell in their thousands, or they require continued justification
and explanation and end up just drifting away. Reservations remain over the
cost, but we suspect that the 3-series badge and the quality of the execution
might be enough to see it have a more prosperous existence than the Heygate
Estate.
Technical specs
·
Price: $46,365
·
0-62mph: 7.9 sec
·
Top speed: 140mph (limited)
·
Economy: 58.9mpg (combined)
·
CO2: 127g/km
·
Kerb weight: 1640kg
·
Engine: 4 cyls in line, 1995cc, turbo diesel
·
Installation: Front, longitudinal, 4WD
·
Power: 181bhp at 4000 rpm
·
Torque: 280lb ft at 1750-2750rpm
·
Gearbox: 8-spd auto
·
Fuel tank: 57 liters
·
Wheels: 8J x 19in (optional)
·
Tires: 225/45 WR19 (optional)
|