Well folks, our year-in-a-fortnight with the 1-series M Coupe has come and gone alarmingly quickly (well, in a fortnight) and we are left bereft of the Valencia Orange monster.
But before we let it go back to BMW, we thought we'd better draw some conclusions about the newest and smallest M car.
Is it an E30 M3 for the 21st century? Was BMW right to go down the route of using the N54 twin-turbo engine? Has Munich pitched the looks and spec right? Is it, in short, any good?
To help us decide, we thought we'd draw upon the experience of a couple of tame PHers, Duncan and Pradip. We should probably admit up front that this is hardly an objective choice, as the two between them have owned more or less every M-shaped BMW out there, and Duncan has a 1M on order. Nevertheless, a brief test drive for both threw up some interesting points...
"The 1M is very much a 21st-century M car, especially compared with the E30 M3," reckons Pradip. "The car makes so many allowances for you, and that's a double-edged sword, both protecting you and wrapping you in cotton wool. It's almost got more in common with recent fast Audis than with the full-fat M cars of the past."
Which would perhaps be condemnation by association in the eyes of many, but we reckon he's right, in that the 1-series M is actually quite a road-focussed prospect, with relatively few hard edges - and that's no bad thing.
"The 1M is also sort of short and fat, not exactly the best dance partner but good for stability - the M3 feels better because it's longer, and those nine inches in the wheelbase matter," Pradip continues. "The car feels big and strong like a Tonka toy, but the power is not as addictive as I had expected.
He also has some criticism (with which we would heartily agree) about the step-like power delivery. "The turbo jump is almost like a kickdown and can catch you out; it's almost an on/off switch." When the power delivery in a 135i is so linear, it does seem odd that the 1M is so boosty - it makes you wonder if BMW deliberately engineered it that way to make it feel artificially fast.
Duncan is less equivocal. "It's fabulous. You can tell a lot in the first 100 yards. It's the steering weight for me. I remember thinking that the M3 steering was too light, whereas the 1M feels more solid and purposeful.
"The ride is also just right, better than the M3, and it feels just a fraction more compliant. It seemed to cope with rough roads in a more unruffled manner. Oh, and the gearchange feels faster.
"But the biggest 'yes!' moment was the cornering. The combination of steering and grip was perfect. There's a slip road off the A3 near New Malden that is about 200 metres long. It has a tight left-hander followed by a longer right-hander and you can learn a lot about a car from it. The 1M felt completely planted all the way around. Balanced and unruffled. It stopped dead at the end, too."
But while Duncan was taken with the ride, Pradip (like myself) have some reservations. He reckons the ride is a bit jiggly and that the 1M would benefit from BMW's EDC electronic damper control (first fitted, he points out, on the M3 way back in 1987).
Disagreement reigns with the interior, too. Duncan reckons the cabin is "definitely a notch or two up in quality from (his) 135i" while Pradip reckons it to be 'so-so'.
Smug smile of a man with a 1M on order...
Both Duncan and Pradip agree on the sound front, however, Duncan marking it down for seeming "a little too warbly and lacking in tonal range" while Pradip declares it merely to be "okay".
So what about the looks? These are inevitably subjective, and while yours truly finds the quasi-touring car styling appealing, I don't exactly find it the prettiest car in the world. Duncan, meanwhile, suggests that "the wheelarches and wheel size make it look cartoonish, but it looks fresh and contemporary. It looks...ready." We see what he means. Pradip takes a similar stance, likening the 1M to Angelina Jolie, in that it's "very powerful but lacking in charm and classic beauty. I prefer my cars to be more in the Grace Kelly mould." Parking it next to Pradip's delicately purposeful M3 for these pictures, you can see where he's coming from.
So after an all-too-brief time with the 1M, the collected wisdom of two tame PHers (and lots more 'wild' ones) and some extremely bad false beards (we mean natural hair growth) in an attempt to mark the passage of time, what do we think?
The face of a man looking forward to a shave...
Is it a proper M car? Nearly. It's certainly a fantastic performance car, but it's perhaps not the full-on E30 M3 revival that some might have hoped. But think of it as not a 'proper' fast BMW, kind of like an 'M3 Compact' and you'd be being unkind.
Pradip thinks that "the entry-level sport BMW should be under £30k, stripped of all gadgets and toys, with a four-cylinder engine, decent brakes, loudish exhaust and an LSD." We concur. But not being that car still doesn't prevent the 1M from turning out to be an epic fast Bee-Em.
"This is a car I want to take my time getting to know because it feels like it has a deep reserve of talent and character," says Duncan. "It feels like the first of a new breed of M car. It feels contemporary."
We couldn't agree more, Duncan. We just wish ours hadn't gone back to Bracknell in the back of a BMW UK delivery truck so soon...