• Five-star Euro NCAP rating in 2012
• Generous levels of safety kit as standard
• Even wider range of optional features to look out for

Like many premium manufacturers, BMW boasts an enviable safety record, as evidenced by the 1 Series Sports Hatch’s five-star rating when it was crash-tested by Euro NCAP back in 2012.

Not only is it particularly strong, it’s packed with safety-related kit including stability software, Dynamic Traction Control with Brake Control (allowing individual wheels to be slowed to maximise traction as well as safety), automatic lights and wipers, LED rear lights and foglamps.

M Sport and M140i models also boast standard LED headlights.

BMW 1 Series Sports Hatch optional safety equipment

You can’t be too safe, of course, so there’s a wide range of extra-cost options and bundles to consider, including adaptive cruise control, a self-parking system, adaptive LED headlights that turn the beam pattern with your steering input and a Driving Assistant pack.

This comprises of an attentiveness assistant, low-speed autonomous emergency braking, lane-departure warning and preventative pedestrian protection, so is worth looking out for.

• Roomy up front, but cramped in the rear
• Small boot, even with seats folded
• Lots of stowage space in the cabin

Practicality was not a strong point of the first-generation 1 Series Sports Hatch, but this version of the BMW is a little better.

In the rear it’s still very tight and although there are five seatbelts, you’ll struggle to fit that many adults in comfortably – even four might struggle. Plus, as with any car of that configuration, access to the rear seats of the three-door is a hassle many will choose not to have.

There are plenty of cubby holes dotted around the front of the cabin to keep spare change and other bits and pieces in place but none of the easy-access ones are especially deep. Time to hide your cabin detritus away.

It’s a compact three- and five-door range of hatchbacks – despite that long bonnet giving a different impression from the driver’s seat – so you’ll have little bother slotting it into a conventionally-sized garage or a parking space in an archetypal multi-storey.

Although back-seat passenger space is compromised by the BMW’s rear-wheel drive arrangement, the boot capacity hasn’t been impinged to the same degree. 

With all seats in place there’s 360 litres of volume in the boot – about 20 litres shy of what a Mk7 Golf can muster. Tumble the 60:40 split rear seats over – a convenient 40:20:40 split is optionally available – and that increases to a more useful 1,200 litres.