Just when
you thought you were getting your head around BMW’s new naming conventions it’s
moved the goal posts again with the arrival of the front-wheel drive 2 Series
Active Tourer.
Had we not known
about the impending arrival of the Active Tourer we
could have been forgiven for thinking that April Fools’ day
had come early this year. The very same day that we heard about BMW’s entry
into the mini-MPV market with the front-wheel drive Active 2 Series Renault
also revealed that it was going to be making a rear-engined,
rear-wheel drive city car. The world’s gone mad!
The Active Tourer employs a single-joint spring strut axle at the
front, a multi-link rear axle and electromechanical steering system to make it
agile, precise, stable and comfortable
The fact
that this 2 Series Active Tourer is driven by the
‘wrong’ wheels has certainly caused a fair amount of consternation on the
forums but in the cold light of day if BMW wants to enter this segment of the
market the packaging benefits of FWD really can’t be ignored. While some might
see the adoption of front-wheel drive as the end of an era it is worth pointing
out that the majority of the range will be staying firmly with their rear drive
roots, although the next generation 1 Series will almost certainly be available
with front-wheel drive.
What is a
little confusing is how the Active Tourer has gained
a 2 Series moniker… weren’t the odd numbers now for four-doors and Tourings while even numbers were going to be reserved for
coupés and convertibles? Apparently the Active Tourer
gets a ‘Two’ due to its ‘positioning… size, equipment levels and pricing.’ No,
it doesn’t make sense to us either.
Interior room is
optimized through the use of elements like a long wheelbase, raised roof and
fold-flat passenger seat
Name and
driven wheels aside, there’s actually going to be an awful lot to like about
the Active Tourer, particularly the amount of
interior space it will offer. This might seems like a surprise from a machine
that’s less than 20mm longer than a 1 Series hatch, but rear seat legroom is
almost at 7 Series levels. For the record the Active Tourer
is 4342mm long, 1,800mm wide and 1,555mm high which puts it more or less on a
par with the X1 as far as external dimensions are concerned. It might be the
same size but the 2 Series will be considerably lighter – about 100kg on a
like-for-like comparison between the 218d and sDrive18d X1.
It may be
badged as a BMW but underneath the Active Tourer will
share many parts with the new MINI – BMW doesn’t refer to platform-sharing
between its models but likes to imagine a ‘backbone’ concept between similar
models and thus the new MINI and the Active Tourer
share the same spine, but the one in the BMW has been extended somewhat as it
uses a longer wheelbase than the MINI at 2,670mm. Initial
reports from the press launch of the new MINI suggests it drives every
bit as well as you’d expect from the hatch which bodes well for the Active Tourer’s driving dynamics.
The transverse engine
will take some getting used to
The Active Tourer employs a single-joint spring strut axle at the
front, a multi-link rear axle and electromechanical steering system to make it
agile, precise, stable and comfortable
Eventually there
will be an extensive model line-up in the UK – 218i, 220i, 225i xDrive, 216d, 218d and 220d (in both two- and four-wheel
drive) – but for the time being UK models will be limited to the 218i and 218d
when they go on sale on 27 September with the other models coming on stream in
December this year.
