Dynasties: 2014 BMW 3- and 4-series / Honda Accord

Alistair Cooke would have called it a quintessentially American success story: Two foreigners land on our shores from nations once defeated and destitute to seek fortunes in the land of their conqueror. Lofted to unimaginable heights by the updraft of postwar prosperity, they become business empires unto themselves.

How much should we read into the common narratives of Honda and BMW? Both are smaller firms relative to the giants of the industry, yet they have remained steadfastly independent as others have buddied up into global conglomerates. Both companies have an inordinately strong sense of identity, rooted in engineering and nurtured at some point in their histories by a single patron or family. Both make motorcycles. And after nearly four decades of continuous success in America, the BMW 3-series and the Honda Accord are themselves automotive dynasties.

The Honda Accord is perfectly named, the result of a timely accord between Japan’s burgeoning industrial might and America’s rapidly changing post-OPEC market. The first Accord in 1976 was a huge stride from the series of mostly obscure subcompacts that preceded it. Building on the Civic CVCC, the Accord was a polished and precision Japanese instrument in the mold of a contemporary Sony tape recorder or a Nikon camera, and it threw Detroit’s complacency into glaringly sharp relief.

Even so, the Accord is America’s Honda. We own it, and it is ours. It was the first Japanese car to be assembled here—indeed, in the middle of America, in Rust-Belt Ohio—and it grew and morphed with the needs of its prime constituency, the baby-boom generation. It even contributed to an American-style scandal in the 1980s when the demand for Hondas far outstripped the supply and the company’s U.S. sales managers skimmed millions in bribes and kickbacks from dealers desperate for stock.

On the showroom floor, the Accord displayed engineering elegance that anybody could appreciate, from the perfectly placed cabin controls and the painstakingly efficient packaging to the meticulously routed hoses and cables under the hood. In motion, an Accord was light, thrifty, fun, practical, and incredibly durable. Honda sealed its reputation with the Accord, and the car has consistently adhered to its core values through nine generations.

There isn’t a bad apple in the bushel, but the 1994–1997 fifth-gen is a particularly warm memory. The sheetmetal was wrapped tightly, the hoodline sloping down to two illuminated slits for headlights. It was the first Accord with a V-6 and the first with panache as well as purpose. It drove like it, immediately rendering all other cars in its class contenders for second place. Since then, the Accord has grown and matured—undoubtedly too much in the just-retired eighth generation. But the redesigned 2013 Accord returned to form as a slightly smaller but still unapologetically practical vehicle with acres of glass for visibility, a capacious cabin, and that same spry lightness to its controls and movements. Once again, the Accord became the stand­ard by which the largest and most competitive class of passenger cars is judged.

As with Honda, BMW is, at heart, a small-car company—an ingrained idiosyncrasy that is perhaps the reason it nearly collapsed in the 1950s when it tried to produce a series of expensive, handmade sedans and coupes. The ensuing boardroom turmoil and threat of takeover by Daimler-Benz is what allowed Herbert Quandt and his brother Harald to wrest control of the company in 1959 and steer BMW toward its destiny as the purveyor of small and boxy ultimate driving machines. It’s the reason that the 3-series has always been better than the 5 and the 7.

From the start, the 1977 BMW E21 3er and its successors have been built the way common-sense enthusiasts would build their cars. The axle loads are nearly equal on a trim and tidy rear-drive platform with exactly enough room to serve practical needs. No inches or pounds are wasted, and nothing but an inline engine will do. Even as others have yielded to the temptations of a V-6 or front-drive, with their inherent packaging benefits, BMW has stuck to its formula.

As each new 3-series debuted, from E30 to E36, and E46 to E90, there was never a question of whether there would be a manual transmission offered, never a doubt that a sport package or an M version would cure whatever plushness BMW had conceded for wider market acceptance. Unquestionably, BMW benefited from the floundering of its competitors; Mercedes-Benz answered with a dynamic also-ran, and then its quality  went into a decade-long spiral before climbing back out, and it took Audi 20 years to recover from unintended acceleration. The Japanese and American brands were off the radar.

Even people whose car passions flow elsewhere have a favorite 3-series generation, but we couldn’t develop a consensus in the office. Was it the elemental E30; the fully flowered, do-it-all E90; or one in between? At one time the 3-series was half of BMW’s volume in the U.S., but the best-selling luxury brand in America has lately borne a lot of kittens, and the lineup is diluted. Even at around 37 percent of BMW’s U.S. sales for the first nine months of 2013, the 3 remains both a profit fountain for BMW as well as the ideological center of its brand.

Today, the 3 wears a bull’s-eye on its back as every luxury maker now takes aim at the fat, lower end of the luxury-car segment, which is the $35,000–$45,000 (or $399–$499/month) compact sports sedan. The current F30, which in its initial 320i, 328i, and 335i form, or 428i/435i as per the coupe’s new designation, is softer than ever and suffers from imperfect electrified steering.

But it still bears the burdens of its leadership with understated, everyday excellence. Anchoring to the road with a balletic balance and a satisfying exactness to its controls, the 3 also delivers the premium experience—of powertrain isolation, switch feel, and ride quality—expected of its premium price.

In some ways, the 3-series feels like an expensive Accord, which feels like an economy 3-series. Which is exactly what has ensured both such long tenures on our 10Best list.