2020 BMW 3 Series Review : All-New BMW 320d Xdrive Experience

2020 BMW 3 Series: All-New BMW 320d Xdrive Experience
The BMW 3 Series is luxury sports sedan royalty. It's the first car I think of when considering this class, and for good reason — it was the best for a good stretch of time. The BMW ran away from the luxury sports sedan field and won our 2013 Challenge in a landslide. That was the first Challenge that I participated in for Cars.com, and after driving each of the competitors, it was clear that the BMW was the class of the field. It accelerated harder, drove better and felt more refined.
But the crown has fallen on hard times of late. When we did the Luxury Sports Sedan Challenge again in 2017, the BMW 330i slipped all the way to sixth place. This was due in some part to a curious set of winter tires and strange options, but to me the bigger issue was that a new crop of contenders like the Alfa Romeo Giulia and Cadillac ATS had leapfrogged it — especially when it came to driving acumen.
Not winning a Challenge is one thing, but losing a Challenge and not being one of the three cars selected to be a part of our "fun to drive" rankings? Double ouch. And that Challenge occurred before my favorite current entrant in the class arrived and took home our Best of 2019 award: the Genesis G70. In an effort to reclaim its place, BMW has redesigned the 3 Series for 2019, which marks the introduction of the G20 generation (the previous generation was dubbed the F30). It has a better interior, new technology and safety features, and (of course) new styling. Going through all of that will take some more time with the car, but I arrived in Palm Springs, Calif., with a simpler question in mind: Does the 3 Series get its mojo back? I tested two versions of the new 3 Series, a 2019 330i and a 2020 M340i xDrive, in two very different environments — the 330i on the street, and the M340i on the track