Quite a few BMW enthusiasts were excited to see the M235i come to production. Some say it was a call back to a more traditional driver's car and BMW wanted you to think so too, with their ads for it also featuring the legendary 2002.
Car And Driver got their hands on a manual version and put it to the test. Not surprisingly, the manual was slower than the previous 8-speed automatic that they tested earlier. What was surprising though, is how much slower it actually was with a 0 to 60 mph time just over a half second slower and almost a second slower on the 0 to 100 mph test.
Here are the test results for the BMW M235i manual:
- Zero to 60 mph: 4.9 sec
- Zero to 100 mph: 11.7 sec
- Zero to 130 mph: 20.7 sec
- Zero to 150 mph: 31.5 sec
- Rolling start, 5-60 mph: 5.8 sec
- Top gear, 30-50 mph: 6.8 sec
- Top gear, 50-70 mph: 6.0 sec
- Standing ¼-mile: 13.4 sec @ 106 mph
- Braking, 70-0 mph: 153 ft
- Roadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad: 0.92 g
Even though the manual is slower than the paddle-shifting automatic in just about every test, this is what they had to say about the M235i:
"The M235i delivers the kind of connectivity that we still prioritize over everything else—the connection between car and driver, which is why we’d still order an M235i with a clutch pedal."
You can read the entire review and see the test results on the Car And Driver website. —Nate Risch
