Light Front, Runs and Drives, Passenger Airbag Good. BMW's small 1 Series debuted in the U.S. for 2008 as a coupe and a convertible. The base 128i is powered by an inline-six-cylinder engine that drives the rear wheels. Both body styles also come with a more powerful turbocharged engine as 135i models, covered in a separate report in the Cars.com Research section. The 128i competes with other performance cars like the Mazda RX-8 and Nissan 370Z.