My main criticism of the 120 is not the driver appeal but the ride quality. On its large wheels and low-profile rubber, my sportily specced car was always firm and frequently restless, even at a 70mph cruise.
To my dismay, Felix Page’s Cupra Leon had even thinner 19in tyres and was consequently even more uncomfortable, but two wrongs don’t make a right.
As I’ve previously written, you might be wise to add a load of sporty-looking options to BMW’s cheaper Sport trim and protect your posterior with 10cm more sidewall. On the subject of options, my car was fitted with a staggering £10,000 worth of them.
I certainly wouldn’t recommend anyone following suit, because this takes the 120 M Sport over the ‘luxury car tax’ threshold, but of them I would have missed the enhanced brakes (which possibly saved me from committing felicide), 40/20/40-split folding rear seats, sun protection glass, Harman Kardon stereo (excellent sound quality) and sunroof – and I did miss adjustable lower-back support (£415).
Like my colleagues, I feel obliged to criticise BMW’s decision to bin the rows of physical buttons on the dashboard, as a touchscreen is never a worthy substitute.
But I must temper this by saying that, thanks to the configurability of the digital instrument display (you can have your sat-nav and media displayed between the tacho and speedo), changing the climate is less fraught here than I have found it to be in other modern cars.
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