Why are BMW compacts so heavy?

[jaker]

reading evo the other night, I noticed how heavy these somewhat small cars are... why are they so heavy?

I also remember phatgixer commenting that his race compact was blooming heavy....

[SJobson]

Are you talking E46 Compacts? They're not *that* heavy - a 325Ti is about the same weight as a mk4 or mk5 Golf GTI. Similar performance to an E46 330i saloon, too, which has 40bhp more, so clearly lighter than that.

[jaker]

I think they would make a cracking road/track toy... are there many parts available?

[SJobson]

No idea, but I bet if you stripped out the interior you could get the weight down a bit.