[DrivenByE30]

Originally Posted by bryce

a 135i sedan with the overall size of an e46 would be money. i'd buy one tomorrow if it was available

to this day, i am still waiting for a true/real successor to the E30 formula...

The 135i/1M is the closest thing we got, but i would like to have something of a 4 door for more nerdiness... look to the touring for ultimate nerd driving machine!

the Audi A3 sedan was almost it... and by the look of it, Cadillac is on to something with the ATS ...


Instead of inventing new categories of car such as the 3GT etc ...
couldn't they have done a Neo-E30 version ??

I have been waiting for it for 10 years already ...

it's not that difficult... I will sign right away ... especially with the N20 engine!

[Propagator]

Originally Posted by justinnum1

Why would i believe cadillacs "claims" Bmw came in over weight, i doubt the cadillac ends up being the same weight they are forecasting

We'll see. But Cadillac does have more to prove in this segment, so they might try harder. Also, if they did indeed benchmark the E46, I have to at least give them credit for having a good taste.

[MikeTerp]

Originally Posted by justinnum1

Why would i believe cadillacs "claims" Bmw came in over weight, i doubt the cadillac ends up being the same weight they are forecasting

Well, you can believe anything you want to. The point was that Cadillac is trying to develop the new ATS as a competitor to the 3 series and other cars in its class such as the A4, C350, etc. According to all the stuff posted on the Cadillac boards, their engineers chose the E46 as the benchmark to try to emulate regarding handling, etc. One of the things that everyone said was, "oh yeah, this is a Caddy and will be a whale". Apparently, their engineers took this to heart and knocked themselves out trying to get the pounds out of the car and to keep the weight distro around 50/50. They spent a lot of time on suspension tuning and seem to have had some success as the car ran very well in testing at the Nordschleife Ring.
We'll see how well the ATS does in "real world" comparisons, including weights and measures, but this seems to be a very serious effort on the part of Cadillac to get into this segment. This is not some rebadged Malibu.

[JoeyO]

Every time Cadillac comes out with a new model they say it's a direct competitor to some BMW model.

They've said that line so many times, they're beginning to sound like the boy who cried wolf. It's hard to take them seriously now.

[BH_Fanaticos77]

Originally Posted by mkoesel

I noticed that too, and it surprised me much more than the transmission gear ratios being the same. The latter is pretty common for cars with different engines (see E9x 335i and E9x M3 for example), but typically the final drive is used as the equalizer. I guess the N20 and N55 are similar enough in power delivery that they can use the exact same ratios from the engine to the wheels. What's interesting though, is that for the manual transmission, everything is different. Even the transmission itself is totally different between the two (not even the same manufacturer, apparently). Seems a little strange given how similar the respective AT-equipped cars are.

Right. I agree that for AT it is possible due to similar turbo delivery and its power band that this may work. Both engines sweet spots may be the same, where 328 would be accelerating slower but as far as the fuel economy it makes sense. None are used for top speed anyway since there is a gov limiter.

Manual is what gets me more puzzled as well. Aside form the torque rating that's probably different, so the tranny would be cheaper for 328 (I'd assume)

[MonsterM]

Hmmm these numbers are weird. So the 0-60 MPH difference between 335i and 328i is .3 seconds? BTW C/D (very good with 0-60 times) got the F30 335i 0-60 in 5.3 seconds. They also had the E90 328i at 0-60 in 5.9 seconds and 6.1 seconds during two different tests. Also what is up with that curb weight of the 328i? I though it was supposed to be lighter than the E90.