2012 BMW 135i M Sport Convertible - Regular Car Reviews

[00:03] out his crypto earnings. You want to see my BMW? And I know it's not new, but it's still a twodoor. I [snorts] don't like it when cars with too many doors. It just makes it easier for people to leave me. Hang on. Hang on. Someone's

[00:16] blowing me up. Uh, don't go nowhere. Yeah. No, this is totally a real phone call. It's not performative at all. Anyway, yeah, check out my BMW. It's not an M, but if I throw on a Cobb access port, it's pretty much the same thing. I

[00:29] don't receive calls my Android cuz it's always updating. This [snorts] why I also carry a 17 Pro Max. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't go away. Look at my maintenance is cheap and it's super easy. All you got to do is connect to a

[00:43] every morning. I just made enough on Bitconnect to cover the lease and [snorts] an engagement ring for the first girl who treats me nice. Hello. Today's the last day to enter our giveaway for this 2013 Volkswagen Golf

[01:00] R. It makes somewhere between 350 and 400 horsepower. It also has had the walnut blasting done, new fuel injectors, direct injectors, and new

[01:12] spark plugs, and a completely new intake. It's a KN&N, in case you're wondering. Go to fan of them.com. Click the link on the description. fan of them.com/regularcars.

[01:25] Pick up some merch and you're automatically entered to win this essentially new car. Like the fresh engine. You don't have to worry about anything with this engine for at least 100,000 miles. Get it. Enjoy it.

[01:38] Six-speed manual. It's wonderful. And doing these giveaways helps regular car reviews out. Without these giveaways, honestly, regular car reviews would be in a different sort of state than it is now. You're helping keep the show going

[01:51] and I really appreciate. Speaking of being appreciated, this car needs some yum yums. Anyway, back to the video. >> I I'm sitting in a nice happy pocket of air right here. Nick, I don't know how

[02:04] >> Well, he's he's probably getting hammered. They make uh I th I didn't bring it, but they have like a little mesh screen that you put up behind the back, >> and I think it kind of lets the air

[02:16] >> and I think it kind of lets the air >> roll a little nicer off the car. BMW Sponsored by men who never think being a landlord is going to backfire on them. Brown. [gasps] Thank you BMW for making

[02:30] Brown. [gasps] Thank you BMW for making a brown car. I can hear James gang wafting through the summer breeze and a CREAM INTERIOR. BRING BACK BROWN CARS. CREAM INTERIOR. BRING BACK BROWN CARS. >> THE BMW. What do you got? Time to merge.

[02:44] >> THE BMW. What do you got? Time to merge. Give me the business.

[03:04] between the hard suspension or at least from my perspective a hard suspension and a almost electric car smooth engine. >> Yeah. >> So I can hear the engine, don't really

[03:19] feel it. >> Exactly. But no matter how much 1970s calm swagger that this brown paint job gives off, it's still a low-level BMW that attracts douchebags. To what extent does BMW still elevate your perception

[03:35] among others? What kind of status buff is it applying to your position in life? Because there's this cultural expectation that BMW lifts you up into the same oxygen starved heights as people who wouldn't notice $100 missing

[03:50] from their bank account. But that assumes BMW exclusively makes products that do that. They don't. Sometimes they make cars that aren't obsessed with keeping up appearances. Keeping up appearances is exhausting. And who wants

[04:03] to spend their life constantly trying to up the ante? BMW already has cars for one upmanship. So instead, they built a car that's less concerned with what it means to own a BMW than what it means to drive one. Powered by a 300 horsepower

[04:19] drive one. Powered by a 300 horsepower inline 6 N55 engine with a turbo, this inline 6 N55 engine with a turbo, this Brown 135 BMW gives you modern Chrysler Learon vibes. It's an entry-level luxury convertible that lets you get your

[04:33] convertible that lets you get your pulsed boy toy lips on the rim of life's pulsed boy toy lips on the rim of life's pimp cup. Confident, smooth acceleration yourself >> in a classy environment like a Cessna

[04:47] Citation or a tour of Princeton University or a new Harbor Freight before it turns into Little Kensington. A BMW stands near the LED flashlights by A BMW stands near the LED flashlights by the register, both hands down his pants,

[05:02] rummaging like he's trying to find his charging cable at the bottom of his carry-on. His eyes roll back. His Temple University baseball cap falls off the back of his head. The Harbor Freight clerk stares indifferently.

[05:19] BMW driver pulls his hands from his pants, covered in [ __ ] every inch, sping, dripping from his fingers like he stuck his hands in a bucket of vanilla icing.

[05:33] his hands in a bucket of vanilla icing. >> "It's flavor town," >> he says, bringing his hands to his mouth. mouth. "The BMW 135i is a good car, and it

[05:45] gives you the BMW experience, but at a deeper level. It's a car of two extremes. On the one hand, it's a convertible for a 26-year-old who just started making career money at his first job where the uniform is dress clothes.

[05:59] On the [snorts] other hand, it's a car for a 75year-old retiree searching for a final car before his license is taken away. And he spends his twilight years

[06:11] running out the clock in a common room of some geriatric jailhouse in Tampa, of some geriatric jailhouse in Tampa, Florida. BMW 135i, the final car. In the sunset years of your driving life, it makes sense to get something that looks

[06:25] nice and can [clears throat] be fun without making you look like somebody who's desperately clinging on to youth in a way that makes some people who witnessed it sad for you. C convertible C6, C7, C8. This is a dignified end for

[06:41] a driver, even as it's an optimistic beginning for a 20-some kid on the upswing. The only drawback is that anybody who got a convertible BMW in anybody who got a convertible BMW in 2007 for model year 2008 was staring

[06:55] down the barrel of an economy that was about to implode like a bipartisan Thanksgiving. It's not hard to imagine a lot of them got repossessed. Nor is it that hard to imagine some drivers went right back to BMW once things calmed

[07:08] down. And why not? In the late 2000s and early 2010s, these types of BMWs were appealing. Maybe not 3 series appealing. You had purists who hated the styling, but for the most part, a BMW is still a BMW, and that remains true today. If

[07:24] anything, it's more attractive as a used car in today's market, and for the same reasons it would have been attractive in 2008. It's neither super luxurious nor is it below the standard of BMW sophistication. It's more of a yes. And

[07:38] then a yes, but yes, it has an M Sport package and it comes with Marrakesh package and it comes with Marrakesh brown pearl paint. Brown pearl. That's color name. Remember Ronald Reagan? Remember when you had to go to Atlantic

[07:52] City to gamble? Remember when Mel had to come out of something alive? Remember come out of something alive? Remember quaudes? In a way, the 135i is the perfect car if current luxury cars feel too foreign for you. There's a touch of

[08:06] the good old days here because for the most part, this is just a normalish car that happens to be a BMW rather than a BMW designed to be a rich person's BMW. I'm sure this M Sport package allows this vehicle to achieve 0 whatever G's

[08:23] in a corner and computer controlled active prostate milkers, AI integrated active prostate milkers, AI integrated gooning achievements. No one with a drop top bimmer will use their sports coupe as a sports coupé. It's like the Germans

[08:37] as a sports coupé. It's like the Germans designed a quote unquote nice car for people who aren't used to nice things. It's introductory nice. This BMW is nice 101. No prerequisites needed. This is the automotive equivalent of an exit row

[08:54] on an airplane. It's comfortable, but it's not first class. But if you've never had first class, then the exit row is paradise. Same vibes. The 135i with the top down is terrific. You don't get the same overengineered luxury energy as

[09:08] you get on on a Mercedes during their overengineering phase. You know, that late '9s era of Mercedes where the performance and handling came together like a healed marriage. This BMW just nice in the same way that taking a

[09:23] personal day from work is nice. You get the day, but you never feel as free as you would on a holiday where everybody has off. It's like being sick from school in elementary school. Not sick enough for the doctor, but sick enough

[09:36] to stay home. It feels nice. But then at 3:35 p.m., your next door neighbor, who's also in your class, comes by with a stack full of books and a pile of homework and classwork that you would have done during school. Now, your sick

[09:50] day off from school has become a mad scramble from 400 p. p.m. to 900 p.m. as you do the work at the kitchen table with a runny nose. You're there with a mechanical pencil trying to catch up with a system that has continued on

[10:04] without you. Because your sick day was a lesser version of a snow day. And similarly, the 135i is like being a part of the luxury car culture that BMW represents, but a lesser version of it. Not too fancy and not too foreign. It's

[10:19] just the right amount of luxury with the potential to give you a tiny upgrade in perception. Is it as luxurious as a W140SClass W140SClass Mercedes? No. Is this a Lexus LC500? No.

[10:31] Mercedes? No. Is this a Lexus LC500? No. No way. But does that mean a 135i is a bad car? Of course it's not. It's just a more accessible luxury car that rewards modest taste. You should get a car like this because you want to experience a

[10:45] BMW, not because of what you think owning one will do for how you're perceived. You don't get a 135i in case you run into your ex at the gas station, because it's not going to suddenly make you look rich. That's what a 330 is for.

[10:59] The MSRP would have hovered in the high30s, low4s, so around $39,000 at base. And in 2026, this car is about $60,000. Not cheap, but it wasn't too

[11:11] high up on the shelf for people to reach, provided the financial collapse hadn't happened yet. But our volunteer Robert got this car used out the door for 15,000. And it's a good price for what you get. Once again, the engine is

[11:24] a 3 L N55 turbo inline 6. And it's important to note that in this case, a twin power engine is not the same as twin turbo. A twin turbo is two separate

[11:36] turbochargers. Twin power is one turbocharger with a twin scroll design. Toyota did the same thing with the MR2 SW20. They called it a twin entry turbo. had a twin turbo. No, it doesn't. There has never been a twin turbo MR2. Either

[11:53] way, with this, you're good for 300 horsepower and 300 lb feet of torque and factory fuel economy of 28 highway, 20 city, and 23 combined. The dual clutch transmission has a kind of self- feathering clutch that's very tentative.

[12:07] It's like BMW is trying to limit your instincts to go ham, but you can go ham. This is basically an overgrown toy. This is like a Matchbox car pushed across the imagination highway of the living room carpet. A stubby car with anxious power

[12:21] and what do we have here? eyes riding on tires with wedding night grip, capturing the overconfident energy of a guy whose favorite part of the affair is almost getting caught. It plausibly passes as an M model because you pay so much for M

[12:37] an M model because you pay so much for M models these days in 2026. It doesn't make financial sense to buy an M unless you're taking it to track days or if you have data center money. The BMW 135i is a good car that could have been great,

[12:51] but BMW seemed less concerned with maximizing the 135i's potential than with creating something to get people into the BMW family. This vehicle is an will like this just enough to want to

[13:06] they'll never get rid of it. But I keep coming back to this because it feels like an important point to hammer home in the larger context of this car and about luxury car ownership in general. And that is this. Access to luxury is

[13:21] not the same thing as access to privilege. You can enjoy nice things, but you shouldn't expect those things to open doors for you. A BMW 135 is undoubtedly nice, but the true wealthy will not mistake you for one of them.

[13:38] What do the true wealthy people drive? Toyota Land Cruisers. If society is a pizza, you'll be mistaken for an expensive topping before you're ever mistaken for the upper crust. But then keeping up appearances is exhausting,

[13:53] right? Even the oldest teenage vampire gets sick of having to redo high school. So, let the rich people do all the grandstanding and you can just have some anything. a car that's pleasant and

[14:06] only enjoys their wealth through the envy it elicits in others. We have to allow ourselves the grace of being able to have something nice that is unshackled from the expectation that it has to do more for us than just be the

[14:20] nice thing we can enjoy. Thank you. See you next week. Oh, and uh if you're still watching this, enter our giveaway. Go to fan of them.com/regularcars. buy some limited edition merch and someone is going to win this beautiful

[14:36] someone is going to win this beautiful 2013 Volkswagen Golf R. It's a six-speed manual transmission. I adore this. It's really fast and it will outrun this BMW. That's the fun thing. [gasps] Anyway, thank you so much. Once again, go to fan

[14:50] of them.com/regularcars. Entering these giveaways helps keep regular cars going. I thank you so much for supporting us. Have a great week. I was looking at V6 Allaras. I was looking at only not 2.7 liter Se Cring hard

[15:04] tops. So, it had to have the 35 or whatever it was. What else were we >> was in the mix. >> A uh uh uh Yeah, the best one though. Hard top. >> Super retirement spec heated seats that

[15:17] were made of like cardboard vinyl. Like >> once again, like finding the perfect one and then Oh, it's just a Sebring. You know what I mean? just