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BMW brought its not-for-sale-in-America 118d five-door to New York City to claim the 2008 World Green Car award... and that's probably the only time we'll ever see the thing on US soil. Immediately following the event, BMW packed up the car and put it on the boat back to Deutschland.
The BMW 118d is a great car. There's room inside for five, it looks pretty good, and it lovingly adheres to BMW's rear-wheel-drive Ultimate Driving Machine philosophy. What garnered it the World Green Car award, however (beating such rivals as the not-for-sale-in-America Volkswagen Passat 1.9TDI and the not-for-sale-in-America Smart ForTwo CDI), sits under the hood: its 2.0-liter direct-injection turbodiesel four-cylinder engine.
In the 118d, this engine makes 141 horsepower and 221 pound-feet of torque. It will prod the car to 60 mph in about 8.8 seconds, returning 59 mpg on the (foreign) highway and spewing only 118 grams of CO2 per kilometer into the (non-US) atmosphere. Not bad at all.
And yet, despite winning the World Green Car award in Manhattan last week, BMW won't sell the car here. WTF Norbert?! What is it about America that makes you think such a car wouldn't be a smash hit here? What, we're not ready for a car that goes 700 miles between fill-ups? Indeed!!
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