April 11, 1998 (Updated July 23rd, 1998)
By: Robert Leidy

In October of 1996 I took delivery of a 1.9 liter BMW roadster. At that time car magazines were flocking to review BMW's newest addition and most of the reviews were similar, "Great handling, very comfortable, but needs more power". After spending 18 months with the 1.9 my review is slightly different. I think most of the "needs more power" comments came from the expectations people had of the car. To just look at it, it would appear to be a monsterly quick, five second zero to sixty rocket.

The first thing I had to do was learn how to drive it. The BMW 1.9 has power and torque but most of it is in the high RPM range. With the 1.9 you're not going to squeal the tires at a stoplight, but once you get to 3,500 RPMs in 1st gear the fun really starts. Working the smooth shifting five speed was the trick to unlock the potential of the 1.9. Keeping the RPMs between 3500 and 5500 the 1.9 liter engine really responds. Once I learned this, it was really fun darting around Dallas, working the shifter up and down the gears.

Acceleration is just a small part of this car's ability. Testing the roadster's handling capabilities around corners a little faster each time, I started to build an almost invincible attitude. I found that speeding away from a traffic light was boring in comparison to making right hand turns at 30mph without touching the brakes. In fact I got so addicted to the roadsters ability to stick to the ground I started upgrading to 17" wheels, fatter tires, thicker sway bars, anything I could find to further increase the mind sloshing turning ability.

The car's design and setup are nothing short of amazing, driving it around town always left a smile across my face. But there were two distinct weak points that started to bug me after a month or two of ownership.

1. Exhaust: The stock exhaust is tinny and annoying, it was getting better as more miles were being put on it but it was just bugging me too much and I couldn't put up with it. I visited the dealership to listen to other 1.9 Z3s to see if something was wrong. While mine seemed to have a little extra buzz, I accepted the dealerships point that nothing was wrong with mine. Three months after taking ownership I found myself researching solutions and purchasing an aftermarket exhaust that greatly improved the exhaust note, and gave a slight performance boost.

2. Stereo: When you buy a $30,000 dollar car you just assume the stereo is good. Well let me tell you that assumption is false. The stock stereo was seriously under powered for a convertible, and the speakers sounded like something you would find at a swap meet. The stock head unit had some neat features like weather band radio and speed sensitive volume (which was very useful in a convertible). But it was confusing to have such a nice feature packaged matched up to such a cheap amp and speakers. Eventually I upgraded the amplifier and speakers to the level of quality you would expect from BMW. But it's a shame I had to sink another $500 into the roadster to be able to hear CDs with the top down.

Even considering those two weak points the 1.9 liter BMW roadster is simply an amazing car. Before it's popularity started to increase and the general public learned more about the car, people were asking me "how much". Most were expecting $40,000 to $50,000 range a few thought it would be over $50,000. It was fun to see their reactions when I told them I paid under $30,000.

BMW will stop producing the 1.9 Z3 at the end of the 1998 model year. A 2.5 liter version will replace it at roughly the same entry price, but the 2.5 will not have as many standard features. The new 2.5 version will undoubtedly have more power than the 1.9, but I wonder if it will handle as well?

The "Seriously Quick" 2.8