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      10-08-2020, 11:59 AM   #1
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C/D - BMW M235i GC vs Cadillac CT4-V vs Mercedes-AMG A35

1st: Cadillac CT4-V
Highs: Superb dynamics, luxurious ride quality, sharp-witted transmission.
Lows: Low-revving, gritty-sounding engine; drab interior design.
Verdict: An excellent sports sedan built around the right fundamentals.

2nd: Mercedes-AMG A35 4Matic
Highs: Hard-charging attitude, sleek interior, makes us feel young again.
Lows: Structural jitters, awkward infotainment interface.
Verdict: More of a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo than a C-class.

3rd: BMW M235i xDrive Gran Coupe
Highs: Rev-happy engine, precise steering, admirable performance.
Lows: Punishing ride quality, front tires give up early, doesn't look like a BMW.
Verdict: Emphasizes performance numbers over day-to-day livability.

Full Article: https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews...cedes-amg-a35/

Observations on the 2GC:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Car and Driver
Add up the bronze exterior trim, the blue brake calipers, the yam-colored seats, and the girthy steering wheel, and it's clear the M235i is trying hard to prove it's worthy of the M badge on its butt. The performance numbers largely support membership in the M club. The BMW is the quickest in the test to 60 mph, with a blitz of 4.2 seconds. Its quarter-mile run ties that of the Mercedes: 12.9 seconds at 107 mph. The 156-foot stop from 70 mph lands right between the performance of the Cadillac and the Mercedes. And its last-place skidpad finish is a still respectable 0.91 g.

The illusion falls apart when you drive the BMW over rough pavement or down a challenging road. The stiff suspension punishes the driver at every pothole and crack. Ripples in the road cause the body to bob and rock. For a transmission with a torque converter, the eight-speed automatic sure has a hard time creeping away in first gear with any grace.

"The profile view is the M235i Gran Coupe's most flattering angle. Anyone sitting in the backseat will literally feel the roofline."

Hefty steering points the M235i accurately up to its limits, but the front tires lose grip much earlier than the rears. There's just too much understeer here, and it constantly reminds you that the engine is mounted transversely, the economy-car way. The torque running through the front tires doesn't affect the BMW's path under hard acceleration, but attentive hands may notice the compensation software feature that uses the electric-power-steering motor to mute and counteract the front end's compromised geometry. You'll feel the steering wheel alternately stiffen and lighten as it attempts to stifle the front end's predisposition to lay down a serpentine path.

A low-rpm torque peak and relatively high power peak make the M235i's engine a bright spot. It pulls hard and spins smoothly no matter where the tach needle is pointing. But it hardly makes up for the chassis, which was too harsh on every road we drove it on, or the tiresome road noise on the highway. It's as if BMW forgot that this four-door will be used as a daily driver. There's a reason no one commutes to work in a shifter kart, BMW.

Speaking of livability, the Gran Coupe lacks rear headroom. There's barely even neckroom. It's better up front where the seats are comfortable and the iDrive infotainment system is easy to use. While the low roofline compromises the view out, you're still better off looking out of an M235i than looking at an M235i. The styling can't hide the awkwardly tall decklid or the stubby front end.

We went into this comparison test thinking it would be a close race from top to bottom. The M235i has the performance to hang with the pack, but when it comes to enjoying the time behind the wheel, the A35 and CT4-V are so far ahead, they're practically out of sight.
Observations of the competitors:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Car and Driver
Mercedes-AMG A35: The A35 strikes us as a sort of tuned sport compact dressed in luxury-car clothing. It's more Mitsubishi Lancer Evo and Ford Focus RS than C-class. The 4.3-second assault on 60 mph starts with a sucker-punch launch-control start, and with its raucous 85-decibel exhaust—easily the best sounding here—the A35 could hold its own in a shouting match with an eight-cylinder Mustang. Can an internal-combustion engine run on Red Bull and Adderall?

How else could this car be simultaneously so wired and so focused? The A35 has all the easy stability of a transverse-engine all-wheel-drive vehicle. Yet it manages to feel more nimble than the M235i thanks to astonishing front-end grip and the alert turn-in response that grip produces. Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires help the lightest-in-test A35 score the highest skidpad number by a wide margin, at 0.99 g. It all adds up to a car that approaches its lofty limits without ever feeling nervous or unpredictable

Analogies to the Evo and Focus RS aren't an entirely good thing when a car costs $52,705, though. Highway speeds generate excessive road noise inside the A35. The dual-clutch transmission sometimes hesitates when engaging from a slow roll, and it tends to slam into gear during downshifts under deceleration. And while the AMG's $850 adaptive dampers help take the bite out of big suspension hits more gracefully than the BMW's suspension, the hardest impacts reverberate through a body structure that feels kind of tinny for a Benz.

Mercedes's urbane cockpit shames the BMW and Cadillac interiors with its techy and upscale styling. For another $400 on top of the $600 AMG Performance steering wheel, Mercedes will mount controls for the driving modes, damper settings, and the stability control right on the spokes. Cool.

The MBUX infotainment system is the least intuitive of the three. It can be controlled by the touchscreen on the dash, the touchpad in the center console, and the thumb control on the steering wheel, but any method feels like a compromise—as if the designers couldn't decide which one was the primary input.

The AMG A35 illustrates how these transverse-engine architectures present new challenges for companies that are experts at building cars with longitudinal engines. The first-generation CLA-class felt blatantly cheap inside and abused its occupants with a stiff ride. Now BMW appears to be saddled with similar problems. This AMG rectifies those earlier shortcomings while still partying just as hard. The A35 is an excellent sports sedan; it just falls short of the chassis refinement we expect from a $50,000 luxury car.

Cadillac CT4-V: Give Cadillac credit for sticking to its principles. In a world that overprescribes all-wheel drive and cross-brand parts sharing, Cadillac remains stubbornly and admirably committed to rear-drive sports sedans. And while fashion dictates that a $52,165 vehicle should roll on 19- or 20-inch wheels, the Cadillac arrived on its standard 18-inchers. The CT4-V is a better car for it.

Not as high strung as the A35 but every bit as agile, the CT4-V feels equally at home on highways and country roads. Its steering is precise, linear, and weighted just right, although it delivers less feedback than we were expecting considering how good the ATS-V's steering was. The Cadillac's taller sidewalls, longer wheelbase, and standard magnetorheological dampers help it ride significantly better than the BMW and the AMG. That also translates into a subjective handling advantage. Compared with the others, the V holds its body flatter and calmer while dancing over Michigan's lumpy back roads. Thanks to its imperturbable composure, its quiet demeanor, and its better-balanced weight distribution, the Cadillac drives like a much more expensive car than the BMW or Mercedes.

Unfortunately, we can't say the same thing about the cabin. While the finish and materials are on par with those in the BMW, the vast dark expanses remind us that February is just four months away, and we live in Michigan. Sad. At least the CUE infotainment system has happily evolved into an agreeable interface. It now has not one but two (!) volume knobs (one below the screen, the other ahead of the rotary controller).

The interior design feels like a product of General Motors rather than Cadillac. The engine definitely is a product of big GM. Cadillac vehicles have long been hamstrung by the mass-market engines the brand shares with Chevrolet, and the CT4-V is no exception. While it makes good time in our instrumented testing, the 2.7-liter is reined in by a low 5500-rpm power peak and an off-key exhaust note. The big four, which was thirstier than both 2.0-liters, sounds neither luxurious nor sporty. Its gravelly thrum is about as pleasing as hearing a lawn mower at 7:00 a.m. on a Sunday.

This comparison might have ended with a different finishing order if not for the smart shifting of the transmission. Fluid and fast in its gearchanges, the conventional 10-speed automatic is always ready to drop the engine into the fattest part of its torque curve. It takes the busywork of matching a low-revving engine to one of 10 gear ratios and makes every shift a satisfying event.

While the CT4-V falls into the same traps that have plagued Cadillac for too long, the brand's insistence on doing things the old way is what makes this V so good. Built on the right architecture and honed by GM's vastly underappreciated chassis-tuning team, the CT4-V is the best sedan in this segment you can buy right now.
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      10-08-2020, 02:00 PM   #2
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How are sales on the 2GC? I’ve barely seen any of them in LA. G20 3 series I see a lot of
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      10-08-2020, 02:06 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Germanauto View Post
How are sales on the 2GC? I've barely seen any of them in LA. G20 3 series I see a lot of
Not sure, I've only ever seen one, however, while BMW doesn't separate the coupe/vert from the sedan in sales numbers, 2-series doubled in their YTD Q2 and Q3 of 2020 sales numbers, presumably due to the introduction of the Gran Coupe.

It seems that the A/CLA are the better sellers of the segment though, with the A class selling ~4k units and the CLA ~3k units in Q2 of 2020 compared to BMW's ~3800 units (coupe, vert, sedan) in Q2. I see A-Class' everywhere it seems.
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      10-08-2020, 07:23 PM   #4
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Yawn....so what.
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      10-09-2020, 12:10 AM   #5
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No comment on the rest as it is mostly objective reasoning, but how on earth does the merc get 10/10 for fit and finish? Watch any of the review videos and look at the movement you get in the finished product, I've test driven one of the A-Class mercs (A250) and its just as bad as it appears in some of those review videos...
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      10-09-2020, 06:39 AM   #6
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It didn't just get last place, it lost by a large margin. No M badge should ever grace a transversely mounted, 4 banger based on a FWD platform.

Honestly, what an embarrassment for BMW.
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      10-09-2020, 08:13 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rupes View Post
It didn't just get last place, it lost by a large margin. No M badge should ever grace a transversely mounted, 4 banger based on a FWD platform.

Honestly, what an embarrassment for BMW.
Oh look another elitist. So your M2 that you previously owned was a real M even tho It had a N55 under the hood?
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      10-09-2020, 11:23 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lilstevie View Post
No comment on the rest as it is mostly objective reasoning, but how on earth does the merc get 10/10 for fit and finish? Watch any of the review videos and look at the movement you get in the finished product, I've test driven one of the A-Class mercs (A250) and its just as bad as it appears in some of those review videos...
Seriously. I had a new CLA for a couple days and the interior had creaks and rattles on some road surfaces. The window seals were also either defective or poorly engineered as there was excessive wind noise at highways speeds. The Merc interior may look flashy in photos but the quality is lacking. I don't like all the black piano plastic either.

The one thing the 2GC does not stink at is interior quality.
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      10-11-2020, 11:39 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BlownLSX View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rupes View Post
It didn't just get last place, it lost by a large margin. No M badge should ever grace a transversely mounted, 4 banger based on a FWD platform.

Honestly, what an embarrassment for BMW.
Oh look another elitist. So your M2 that you previously owned was a real M even tho It had a N55 under the hood?
Yeah, the M2 and this car have nothing in common other than the first two digits in their model number. I think you're just looking for a fight, but I won't take the bait.

Sincerely, previously owner of an E46 M3, E92 M3 (owned two of those), M2 owner, and regular old 330XI (notice no M badging on that last one, just as god intended).
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      10-13-2020, 12:48 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rupes View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by BlownLSX View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rupes View Post
It didn't just get last place, it lost by a large margin. No M badge should ever grace a transversely mounted, 4 banger based on a FWD platform.

Honestly, what an embarrassment for BMW.
Oh look another elitist. So your M2 that you previously owned was a real M even tho It had a N55 under the hood?
Yeah, the M2 and this car have nothing in common other than the first two digits in their model number. I think you're just looking for a fight, but I won't take the bait.

Sincerely, previously owner of an E46 M3, E92 M3 (owned two of those), M2 owner, and regular old 330XI (notice no M badging on that last one, just as god intended).
Naw just pointing out the fact the 1st rendition of the m2 was not a full blown M and the new M2 comp is in fact a true 100% M. But carry on.
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      10-15-2020, 10:19 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BlownLSX View Post
Naw just pointing out the fact the 1st rendition of the m2 was not a full blown M and the new M2 comp is in fact a true 100% M. But carry on.
So no bespoke M engine = not a legit M car to you. I suppose the legendary E87 1M was not a legit M then?

There's a big difference between lacking a bespoke M engine and whatever the hell the MBAs in Munich concocted here.
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      10-16-2020, 01:16 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Germanauto View Post
How are sales on the 2GC? I’ve barely seen any of them in LA. G20 3 series I see a lot of
I can't say but the FWD 1 series is the best selling 1 series yet, so I imagine bmw will have a hit in the US with the 2 GC, relative to the 2 coupe anyway. I think the X1 and X2 will beat it
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