The 1 Series will be getting a Life Cycle Impulse in 2023, and BMW is planning to tweak the M135i in more ways than one. Aside from transitioning the all-wheel-drive hot hatch to the latest iDrive as the rest of the 1er models, the Bavarians will also install a quad exhaust system. A new prototype caught testing on a rainy day in Munich shows the AMG A35 competitor from afar.
While four exhaust tips on an M Lite model might seem sacrilegious, it’s already been done with the M760e. BMW is not the first German luxury brand with this approach since Audi has been putting quad exhausts on S-badged, four-cylinder cars for years while Mercedes’ “35” lineup also has a similar arrangement. The M135i is not the only new four-banger M Performance model to adopt this setup since the first-ever X1 M35i also coming in 2023 will share the configuration. In 2024, the X2 M35i will follow suit.
All three cars are rumored to use an evolution of the B48 engine. Company insiders claim the turbocharged 2.0-liter gasoline unit will be massaged to deliver a little bit more power. It’s said to push out somewhere in the region of 315 hp, and while the torque figure is not known, we’ll remind you the current four-pot is good for 332 pound-feet (450 Newton-meters).
With BMW announcing the X1 will soon be built with iDrive 9, logic tells us the 1 Series LCI will also switch to the new operating system running on Android Automotive. The screen size is unlikely to change, so expect a 10.25-inch digital driver’s display and a 10.7-inch touchscreen. From the 3 Series and up, those larger and more expensive models feature a 12.3-inch instrument cluster and a 14.9-inch main display. There are a few exceptions as the 8 Series LCI still uses the old iDrive 7 hardware (much like the Z4 LCI) while the next-gen 5 Series won’t debut until this summer.
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