218i

STORY

The BMW 2 Series occupies an unusual place in the range, because the badge covers two very different kinds of car. On one side is the rear-wheel-drive coupé, the spiritual heir to compact BMW two-doors like the 2002 and the 1 Series Coupé; on the other is the front-wheel-drive Gran Coupé, a four-door built for buyers who want the look without the layout.

The line began in 2014 with the F22 Coupé and Convertible, which took over from the 1 Series two-doors as BMW's smallest rear-drive sports car. Compact, balanced and available with a straight-six in the M235i and later M240i, it earned a devoted following as one of the most engaging cars BMW made. The second-generation G42, launched in 2021, moved to the larger CLAR platform shared with the 3 and 4 Series, keeping rear-wheel drive and the six-cylinder M240i at its top.

Alongside the coupé, BMW introduced the F44 Gran Coupé in 2020, a four-door fastback on the front-wheel-drive UKL platform and mechanically unrelated to the two-door despite the shared name, with the F74 following in 2024. The result is a single badge spanning a driver's coupé and a practical four-door, both sitting above the 1 Series in price and aspiration.