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Sector-defining? The medium sporting saloon was fairly well established in Europe by the time the E21 arrived. Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Triumph were well establ
by dingaling 11y ago
Sector-defining?
The medium sporting saloon was fairly well established in Europe by the time the E21 arrived. Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Triumph were well established in the mainstream and there were plenty of smaller specialists too.
BMW came along with a well-screwed-together package and struck marketing gold with that famous tag-line even though other cars may have been technically superior. That iPhone analogy is looking pretty accurate.
Anyway the 3-series today has little heritage with That original vision. The E36 Compact ( which actually used parts of the E30 chassis ) was probably the last of that lineage until the recent 1-series.
- tobltobs 11y ago> Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Triumph ... Maybe the new thing about the 3er was that it didn't stand in a workshop most of the time.
- mfringel 11y agoDesign and execution count. You mention "well-screwed-together package". To my mind, if they defined the "well-put-together mass-produced sporting sedan" segment by showing you could have a entry-level luxury sedan that wasn't perpetually in the shop, then yes, they did define a segment.
- mzs 11y agoThere was the Bluebird SSS from Datsun same time too, good handling, quite reliable, had executive models, even a 'sharknose' L series 6 in Japan all the way back in '74 years before the BMW M60. About the only thing E21 got better was safety, but Volvo had that before with the Amazon even, took til about '78-81 for the higher performance engines though.
- bradleyland 11y agoThe phrase "sector defining" is commonly used to say that a car defines the target parameters of the sector at the time it is present. Not necessarily that that it was the first in the segment.