The seventh-generation 3 Series, from 2018, is the first on the CLAR architecture BMW scaled down from the 5 and 7 Series. It is longer, wider and considerably stiffer than the F30, and BMW took some fifty kilos out of it despite the car growing in every dimension. Aluminium in the doors, bonnet and suspension is what did it.
The range ran from the 318i with a two-litre four to the M340i with a straight-six and xDrive, plus the 330e plug-in hybrid. The wheelbase grew by four centimetres, the front track by four and the rear by three — which is why the front wings are drawn wider than an F30's and will not interchange with them.
The decisive break is the 2022 LCI. It changed more than headlights, rear lights and aprons: the curved display rebuilt the entire dashboard architecture. A pre-facelift cockpit part will not work in a post-facelift car, however willingly it goes in. At the front the G21 Touring is the same car as the saloon; the M3 G80 sits on the same shell but with wider wings, its own bumpers and its own bonnet.
There is more hanging on a G20 door than the skin suggests — window motor, speaker, mirror control, comfort access and sound deadening all vary by specification. Doors are also what we strip from this model most often, and we check the donor's options list before one goes on the shelf.
