2015 BMW 228i Convertible First Drive
By Marty Padgett Marty Padgett
2,868 viewsFeb 15, 2015Follow Marty
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2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
2015 BMW 2-Series Convertible
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Fifty shades of grey may be a box-office phenomenon this weekend, but at BMW, it's business as usual. Ever see a Bavarian brochure without some halftone hue? Or five of them? If grey could be anthropomorphized, it'd be the brand mascot.
Somehow BMW manages to conjure grey outside of showrooms, too. Even in usually sunny Austin, they've brought with them a pallid sky as a backdrop for a fleet of silver-on-silver droptop 2-Series convertibles. There's a reason you don't see those photos here: it all blended together, and the cars vampired out on us. Sucks, we know.
We took it as a blessing and maybe a clever mind trick by BMW's event-planning Jedi. The anonymity gave us cover to scour Texas' flat planes outside the Circuit of the Americas F1 track in a fleet of 228i convertibles, up to triple-digit speeds, arousing the attention only of a longhorn staring down our leather seats with genealogical curiosity.
What we realized is no matter which BMW passenger car you're driving--even this one, which could be damned with faint praise as a German Sebring, as a Playskool-flavored My First BMW--there's still a warm mechanical vim, an engineering affluence, that transcends the rental fleet of four-seater convertibles.
Given our druthers--it's Texas, indulge us in some local color--we'd even swap a 3-Series for something as spiritually attuned to the road as the 2-Series. It's righteously sized, equipped with the road manners we used to crow about in the more legendary E30 3-Series, and as a convertible, it's a ruffle-free zone. It's also priced under $40,000 base, something exceedingly rare on anything else wearing this logo.