The BMW 3 Series Compact belongs in the category to which the car industry refers - with its traditional feel for heart-lifting language - as "the premium compact hatchback segment". Luckily, it's more interesting to drive than that.
Available in three basic varieties (smart 316ti, posher 316ti SE, dead posh 325ti SE), it's the smallest car in the BMW range and, to some extent, its job is to serve as a teaser. You may have assumed you couldn't afford a brand new Beemer; the chances are you still can't, even with the 3 Series Compact at £16,000 and rising steeply. But it's undoubtedly more affordable than its bigger, wider brothers, and it sits there winking, like some kind of lure - your ticket to Planet Beemer.
Since 1994, when the vehicle first appeared, the take-up has apparently been predominantly among first-time BMW buyers, many of whom, after a taste in miniature of the BMW driving experience, will be unable to countenance driving any other kind of car. You will know them by their saucer-eyes and parched skin, or by their extremely battered Compacts, which they have been unable to afford to trade in. Or you may know them by their poverty. It's BMW's fond hope that, by experimenting (harm lessly, you thought) with the Compact, you will develop an unkickable Beemer habit, forcing yourself to the edge of bankruptcy, if necessary, to feed it.
I approached the new Compact with trepidation. I had done Beemers in the past, and knew how insidiously they could get to you. You think you can handle it - recreationally and in the short term - but the next thing you know, the thought of where your next Beemer might be coming from is occupying more of your waking hours than it rightly should.
Last year, for instance, I had a fairly heavy scene with a 3 Series diesel - the uncompact or, as it were, unexpurgated version of this car, and the model in which Jenson Button was famously stopped by the authorities, doing 147mph. Among recent cars, probably only the Lexus SC430 has kindled in me such frankly unseemly levels of acquisitive lust.
Until then, I had been immune: Beemers always had that recently stolen look, for one thing. And for a premium brand with a reputation for sweetly sophisticated engineering, the marque seemed to have picked up some peculiarly low-life connotations. The greater part of the range seemed to be aimed squarely at (or bought squarely by) boy-racer sales reps and drug dealers. Even the estate versions could sometimes look merely like cars for drug dealers with families.
As if to confirm all these prejudices, the 3 Series I was loaned was gold. Not gold as in expensive jew ellery, but gold as in Terry's All. It was the most unashamedly yobbish paint job it has ever been my privilege to ease past on my way to a driving seat. Once inside, though, I could finally see what all the sales reps and drug-dealers have been getting at. The car was fast, compliant and light to the touch - addictively so. Needless to say, the Compact version is, in every sense, a lesser vehicle. But it shares enough of the tautness and smoothness of the bigger model to be recognisably of the same species and, cunningly, it has a compelling character of its own - one that, moreover, you can further personalise to an unusual degree. BMW have noticed, over the history of the Compact, people's tendency to want to trick the car out with extras to an extraordinary and expensive degree. By requesting most of the accessories in the catalogue - the multi-function sports steering wheel, the rain sensor, the CD-changer, the hot and cold running map-reading lights - the most recklessly individualist customers made their Compacts cost more than £20,000, when the entry level model was only £13,500.
This "build the car for the person you are" idea is in vogue at the moment (Mercedes are presently running an advertising campaign on precisely this theme) and, while one applauds the principle of taking a stand against mass-produced anonymity, there's a dilemma looming for anyone with an indecisive mind. In the time it takes some people to choose between the anthracite roof lining with the "u-turn" aluminium trim and the "California" cloth in dark lavender with the brushed floor mats, the world's petrol supply could finally run out.
On that topic, the engine is one of BMW's snazzy new Valvetronic numbers, which increases power by 10% and decreases consumption and emissions by the same, a statistic to please the red-blooded and the green. Say what you like about the premium compact hatchback segment, it's a place where we can all rub along.
