REALITY CHECK

An M340i Touring seems all the car you'll ever need. Andrew Frankel sees if that's true

- Andrew Frankel

Generally speaking, when a journalist attends a car launch, the idea is to write about the car you've been invited to drive. Quelle surprise. But the BMW X1 launch didn't work out quite like that. I turned up to the event to drive its new, rather inoffensive compact SUV but left with thoughts only of the other car I drove while there. For as I was leaving, I walked out to the car park, there to find an M340i Touring sat amid the ranks of Xls gathered for the press to drive. This M340i, as it happens. So I turned on my heels, went back inside and asked if I might be allowed to take it around the block.

Which is all it took. Sometimes - and I'm afraid it is an increasingly rare occasion - you get in a new car that makes you wonder whether its designers had a picture of you on the wall during its development, so closely does it align with what you need and hope such a car might deliver. Somewhat more concisely, it just felt right.

So when its wider duties were completed, it became mine for a while.