Yes, I feel your pain and I sympathize. Your stocks are down 7 percent, your adjustable rate mortgage has jumped two points, your kid says he wants to go to Harvard and your boss is talking about "right sizing" the company.
Best thing you can do, bunkie, is go out and buy a $40,000 car.OK, maybe it wouldn't solve all your problems; might even make a few of them worse. But I can almost guarantee it will make you feel better. Of course you have to buy the right $40,000 car to make the magic happen - a 1994 BMW 325i convertible.
Skeptical? Well, I can tell you that the "Siena Red" 325i drop top I've been driving this past week certainly had that effect on me. Anytime I found myself feeling tense, anxious, blue, bored or generally down in the dumps, all I had to do was go out to the garage, drop the Bimmer's top and head for the open road.
All that negative stuff would vanish in the sheer exhilaration of topless driving in one of the world's best road machines.
Outrageous hedonism? Gross conspicuous consumption? Guilty, your honor. This is a car whose roots are in the "Greed is good" '80s while we're all busy being socially responsible in the "Green is good" '90s.
I don't care. I love it anyway. I don't know if I would really buy a 325i ragtop at this stage in my life, even if I could afford it, but I sure wouldn't hold it against anyone who did.
BMW has taken all the aggravation out of going topless. There you are, driving along all buttoned up, when you stop at a red light. Time for some fresh air? You push a button on the console and all four of the windows lower automatically.
You then reach up to a single handle at the center of the windshield header - it's easy to grip, no pinched fingers - give it a twist and push up about 10 inches.
Now you push (and hold down) another button on the console. With a nice whirring sound, a metal cover rises up behind the rear seats, the top retracts back into the well and the metal cover clicks back down.
The light turns green and away you go, transformed, leaving your fellow motorists with their mouths hanging open and their eyes green with envy. (I could have levied a cover charge just for letting people watch that marvelous top do its stuff).
In past reviews of convertibles, it has been my tendency to throw a few kudos their way - fun, romance, youth, wind-in-your-hair . . . the usual suspects - and then blow them into the weeds with the impracticality rap.
I won't do that with the 325i, partly because BMW has made doffing its lid so easy and partly because, unlike most cloth toppers, the Bimmer looks and works so well even when wearing its lid.
In short, the penalties for convertibility have never been more palatable. Yes, there's nothing between a thief and the interior of the car that a Swiss Army knife won't take care of, but that's what insurance is for.
The 325i sells itself before you ever climb inside. With its top down, the car is simply a stunner. Every time I parked it and walked away, I would stop, turn around, and stare at it for a moment, admiring its beauty. It's been a long time since a car did that to me.
For most cars, that would be all there is to discuss: It's a looker, its top comes off, it's expensive and you don't see a lot of them around except maybe on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. End of story.
But the convertible thing is only part of the story, and not even the most important part. The important part is not the looking but the driving and Bavarian Motoren Werke might have invented the concept. It certainly perfected it. If anyone promoted their product as "The Ultimate Driving Machine," it would be dismissed as advertising hype. With BMW, it's a legitimate claim.
First the engine. It's a twin-cam, 24-valve, 2.5-liter in-line six. It is very quiet but not so quiet that you can't hear it when you decide to stretch its thoroughbred lungs on a twilight run up Little Cottonwood Canyon.
The first time you drop the accelerator on the 325 you may be a bit disappointed. If your main joy in motoring is being first across the intersection, you would be happier buying something else, the new Camaro Z28 comes to mind.
The Bimmer, conversely, has a different agenda. It doesn't care as much about launching you from a dead stop as it does getting you quickly up the on-ramp onto the freeway or around that triple-trailer semi just ahead. When the engine revs reach about 3,500 rpm, the power comes on and builds strongly all the way up to the 6,200 rpm redline.
What it likes best, though, is not freeways or boulevards or main drags - the kind of roads you ride to work - but rather narrow, twisting two-ways, the kind you drive on Saturday afternoon.
Let's face it, what the 325i does best is have a good time. As a daily commuter it tends to overkill, like using a Purdy over-and-under 12 gauge to pop jack rabbits in Skull Valley, or a Bang and Olufson stereo system to listen to Vanilla Ice. The Bimmer will do it, but so will a Volkswagen Beetle.
My test car had the standard 5-speed manual transmission, and it is the shifter of choice for anyone who wants to take full advantage of the car's performance potential. A 4-speed automatic is an $850 option.
Either way you shift, you will get full benefit of BMW's hard-earned reputation for building some of the best-handling cars in the world. The 325i makes heroes of just about any driver, carving through high-speed turns with aplomb. The ABS-assisted four wheel disc brakes (and fat meaty tires) assure that just about any mistake on the driver's part can be quickly and undramatically repaired.
While I'm thinking about it, let's get specific about how much all this costs. Base price for the 325i convertible is $38,800. My car's metallic paint (which was the subject of much debate as to the hue: Burnt Orange? Copper? Rust? BMW calls it "Siena Red" which seems like a misnomer.) was an extra $475.
The onboard computer that tells you stuff you may or may not want to know, costs $430. Sports Package No. 2, which includes the S-type seats and cross-spoke wheels is $600. The rollover protection system is $1,390, and all-season traction control, which BMW calls ASC+T, is $995 (and, with Utah's winter weather, is a must for a rear-wheel-drive car). Destination and handling is $450, bringing the total price to $43,140.
One cannot talk about convertibles without mentioning body flex or "cowl shake" as it is termed. With the top down and the wind whipping by, the car seems as rigid as its steel-topped sibling - all those distractions, I guess. With the top up and the windows closed, it is easier to compare the car with its steel-topped sibling and, yes, the convert comes in second.
Even though BMW has beefed the convertible with bracing and thicker metals in the superstructure, it still flexes and shudders on some types of rough road. Also, canvas is not as good at sealing out noise as steel, so it's noisier. That said, the 325i is the least noisy/shaky/rattly convertible I have ever driven. As trade-offs go, this one is easy to take . . . and I'd like to.
Convertibles, by their nature, are less safe in an accident than conventional cars - if you doubt that, your insurance agent will be glad to set you straight. But the 325i is probably the least dangerous convertible ever made. It has dual air bags standard along with the ABS. My test car also had BMW's optional ($1,380) rollover protection system which, when the sensors detect an impending rollover, deploys two roll bars located behind the rear seat headrests.
A word about the rear seats: great for two kids and perfectly acceptable for two adults as long as they are not of Karl Malone dimensions. Think of the 325i as a sports car with a back seat. A lot of Mazda Miata owners would love to have one.
Trunk? Well, yes, and it's a lot bigger than the Miata's, but you won't be hauling any 2X4s or plywood sheets back there. I managed to get one golf bag, a pull cart and a pair of spikes in the trunk and I could probably have squeezed in a small overnight case or two, but that's it.
The EPA rates the car at 18 mpg city and 26 mpg highway. If the onboard computer can be believed, I averaged 27 mpg in mostly freeway driving.
The AM/FM cassette stereo in the 325i is a gem, especially its bass response. I rate it right up there just below the standard-setting Infiniti Q45's sound system. One caveat: There is a delay of several seconds between turning the radio on and hearing any sound, unexpected in this "instant on" age.