For a few years after the four-cylinder version was killed and the base Z3 gained the 2.5L I6, the car wore an exterior badge reading “2.3”. Why did BMW lie about the displacement, you ask. Well, they spewed forth a couple of lies after the demise of the four-cylinder and, frankly, Bimmer naming has gone wacky,anyway. Read on for the whole sordid tale.
Let’s forget about M3s for a minute. In the mid-1990s, the 318 was the base 3er and offered four cylinders. At that time, the 325 was the top of the line non-M 3er. When the four-cylinder went away, the 2.5L I6 became the entry engine and a new 2.8L was announced. Two things seem to have lead to silly naming. First, it was hard to have a 325 as top of the line one year and base the next. Second, 325 and 328 may have been seen as too close to justify a significant price premium. Alas, the base 2.5L-equipped 3er was called “323”, while the 2.8L cars were indeed called “328”.
The Z3 wore only displacent-based badges, so BMW decided to badge it with the same spread for consistency. In case you think this was a break with some long history of names based on displacement, note that the 318 actually had a 1.9-liter engine, and not 1.8. Also, the 325e adn 325 in the E30 generation actually had 2.7L displacement, while the 325i and is truly had 2.5L. Even worse is the current naming with XDrive35i…blah-blah-blah oddly consistent between the Z4 and X5/X6. Oh well…the recent Mercedes AMG models badged “6.3” never really had a 6.3-liter engine, so maybe it’s a German thing.
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$9,000
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