BMW 128ti review

It’s a quality interior, at least a match for the latest Golf GTI in terms of materials but much quicker and easier to fathom owing to significantly less reliance on touch screens.

The layout, gear selector and chubbily rimmed steering wheel have all been shoehorned in from a Z4 or a well-specced 3 Series, which is ultimately what 1 Series buyers are surely hoping for: tangible BMW traits in a smaller car. A £1,500 Technology Pack adds a Wifi hotspot, wireless charging and head-up display to make things feel really grown up in here.

What you should resist, though, is the optional leather. The red highlighting on the standard cloth may not be your cup of tea, but leather seats are overrated – especially when you’re buying into a less mature hot hatch than BMW’s own M135i.

There are loads of buttons in here but they’re all intuitively laid out, and being able to lay eight shortcuts out on the 1 to 8 buttons beneath the climate controls – mixing up nav instructions, radio stations and who you call most frequently, for instance – takes the legwork out of most things you do. You can spec BMW’s gimmicky gesture control, but until it becomes more useful, we wouldn’t bother.

Especially when iDrive is so easily controlled via the modestly sized touchscreen or the scroll wheel down by the gear selector, which you can also squiggle handwriting onto with your finger to more safely input addresses on the move. A mixture of old and new USB ports is welcome, as will be the rear pair of USB-Cs if you’ve kids to entertain.

And while we’re in the back, it’s big and airy enough for adults, but only just. We’d argue it’s not the quantum leap in spaciousness the purists will have been hoping for when BMW ditched the 1 Series’ rear-wheel drive in favour of more practicality. The boot’s massive, mind, with 380 litres of volume seats up – and 1,200 with them flipped down – putting it among the best in class.