Today’s 318i is the cheap-seats model featuring manual windows, transmission, and seats. Let’s see if its wagon booty makes up for that poverty spec and its not-so-poverty price. The ad for yesterday’s boasted that the car’s state of tune makes for 13-second quarter-mile dashes.
It also claimed an $18,000 asking price, a number that few of you readily raced to defend. The result was an 88 percent No Dice loss for the hotter than hot hatch. As we discussed, yesterday’s GTI was a five-door model never officially sold here in the U.
S.; our car arrived through private channels following a stint of being big in Japan. Today’s is another plum bit of private import catnip, especially well-suited for old-school Bimmer buffs.
Being a European model, this wagon is also somewhat uniquely spec’d compared to the contemporary U.S. models.
It features manual window and sunroof cranks, lower-end checkered cloth upholstery, and a speedo that goes all the way up to 240. Of course, that’s in kilometers per hour, which translates to 149 miles per hour. That’s still very optimistic since the 318i’s top speed is somewhere around 110 mph.
Getting up to any speed is made possible by the 1.8-liter M40 four-cylinder under the hood. Here, that’s backed up by a Getrag five-speed manual driving the rear wheels.
In Euro guise, the SOHC cam four managed 111 horsepower and 119 lb-ft of torque. This was the last model year for the E30, but it wouldn’t be the last year that Americans w.
