Media Platforms Design Team
Hybrids, by and large, are aimed at people who care more about the planet than they do about driving pleasure. If you want to drive a Ford Fusion or a Toyota Prius or even a Lexus RX 400h, good for you. But if fuel prices ever hit $4.50 a gallon (which we American amnesiacs know will never happen, right?), I won't be buying a hybrid. Instead, I'll crawl into the oily embrace of good old compression ignition and find myself a BMW 335d.
The 335d looks just like any other 3-Series sedan, but its twin-turbo six-cylinder diesel sips fuel to the tune of twenty-three miles per gallon city and thirty-six miles per gallon highway. And if you're cruising at a constant speed, it'll do forty miles per gallon easy. But plenty of hybrids get forty miles per gallon, you say. Yes, they do. But hybrids do not smack you upside the head with 425 pound-feet of unrelenting diesel torque when you get on the gas pedal.
The 335d is legitimately fast: zero to sixty in six seconds, which is quicker than the manual-transmission 328i. It's rear-wheel drive and has a nearly perfect 51/49 percent front-to-rear weight distribution, so the 335d's handling is typical BMW sweetness. And it qualifies for the IRS Advanced Lean Burn Technology tax credit, which means that the government will actually pay you $900 to buy this 130-mile-per-hour luxury car. Buy a Bimmer, stick it to the Man.
The guttural, low-revving motor won't dethrone the gas 335i in terms of ultimate speed and turbine smoothness. But compared with your average hybrid, this is a damn McLaren F1. If you wish to kill the world a little more slowly while hurtling yourself around it a little more quickly, here's your solution.
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