BMW may be called lazy when it comes to the effort it puts into restyling cars for their midlife makeovers. It’s as if they haven’t even tried with the current 3-Series, whose LCI (short for Life Cycle Impulse) will officially debut later today, but which we got to see a bit earlier.
You usually say “oh, you can only spot the differences if you’re a car guy or familiar with the brand,” but really, here, that’s not the case. Even if you like and are into cars cars and know the current 3-Series, you’ll still have to have two photos side by side to see just what’s changed.
The short answer is: not much! Probably the single most drastic visual change is calling the top six-cylinder model 340i, instead of 335i, but other than that it’s just detail alterations. Both the front and rear light clusters are different and are very LED-heavy, but it doesn’t appear as if any other elements are changed.
The bumpers may be slightly different, but even when comparing photos, it’s still hard to notice the differences.
The F30 3-Series needed more than this to keep it relevant, as rivals get prettier, faster and more technologically advanced. Back when this shape 3-Series was launched, its rivals were neither as numerous as they are now, nor were they as talented.
We should have some technical data by the end of the day, so we hope at least that can win back some credit for BMW, which really appears to have not cared at all about this 3-Series refresh; they really should not have bothered with camouflage when testing it.
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