BMW 1 Series review

You’ll have no complaints up front in the 1 Series; there’s plenty of head and leg room for the driver and passenger, and the interior is nice and wide. There are decent-sized door bins, a big glovebox and a generous cubby hole under the central armrest. Add the tray at the front of the centre console and you'll have plenty of places for your bits and pieces.

This is one of the areas in which this third-generation 1 Series makes the most notable progress over its predecessors. The space on offer now rivals its premium rivals – although it still looks a tad stingy in the rear compared with the palatial Skoda Octavia.

Six-footers will feel their heads just brushing the roof lining, but anyone shorter should be comfortable even on long journeys, and there’s a slightly more leg room than you get in an A-Class, plus more foot space under the front seats. 

As with the A-Class or the A3, there's nothing particularly amazing about the seating flexibility here – no sliding or reclining rear seats, for example. But, as standard you get only 60/40 split-rear seats, which aren't as useful as the 40/20/40 arrangement that come as standard in the A-Class. You can upgrade to 40/20/40 seats in the 1 Series, but only if you're prepared to pay extra.

At 380 litres, the 1 Series boot is now bigger than those of the A-Class or Audi A3 on paper. And if you take its generous under-floor space into consideration, that's fine, but in terms of space above the boot floor, it lags behind. 

While the boot's boxy shape makes it easy to maximise the space available, ultimately it won't take as much luggage as an A-Class. We were able to get six carry-on cases into the latter, while the 1 Series manages just five.

On the plus side, the boot floor can be clipped out of the way when you're loading items beneath the floor, and there's only a small load lip. You can also add an electric tailgate for an extra charge.