BAVARIAN BITE ON A BUDGET

BMW's baby coupe finally finds its bite

- SANEET DSILVA

There was a time when owning a small BMW meant something specific. It meant inline sixes and a boot you could slide sideways through a corner. It meant tactility. It meant you were one of the few who understood the value of rear-wheel drive before social media decided car culture was just coffee and carbon. This is not one of those BMWs.

This is the 2025 BMW 218 Gran Coupe, the second generation of a car that never quite lived up to the badge it wore. But now it's back, rebodied, rethought and reworked to appeal to a new kind of customer. The one that wants tech more than tail-out antics and is more interested in Spotify streaming than steering feel. The sort of buyer who may not know or care that the 2 Series Gran Coupe is front-wheel drive by default. And that's fine. Because while the traditionalists mourn the loss of mechanical purity, BMW has quietly built a car that is dinky to look at, pleasant to live with and, surprisingly, rather good to drive.

THE FACE IS SHARPER, AND SO IS THE INTENTION.

BMW calls it shark-like. The new front end takes its cues from the latest 1 Series and leans heavily on angles and aggression. The grille is slimmer, finished in gloss black and now backlit in LED taken straight from the 7 Series playbook. The air intakes are larger. The headlamps are narrower and packed with LED tech. It looks like it belongs in the family now. It is also slightly larger. Twenty millimetres longer. Twenty-five millimetres taller. Thirteen millimetres wider. The difference is subtle on paper but obvious in person. The proportions are better. The stance is more confident. The dimensions are comparable to those of the E30 M3 from the 90s.