• Surprisingly spacious in the front
• Rear seats best suited to younger children
• Boot is big, but access is tricky

Despite its low-slung sports car looks the 2 Series Coupe offers up an impressive amount of space up front, meaning taller drivers shouldn’t have any trouble getting behind the wheel. Climb into the back, however, and that aggressively sloping roofline does mean that headroom’s tight for those approaching six feet tall, while legroom is entirely at the mercy of how far those in the front need their seat back. They’re significantly more useful than the back seats in an Audi TT Coupe or Toyota GT86, though.

That said, young children or smaller adults shouldn’t have much trouble getting relatively comfortable in the back. Elbow room is impressive, but this is largely due to the omission of a central rear seat – something which could prove a serious downside for many potential buyers. 

Storage space is impressive for this type of car, with good-sized door pockets, two cupholders, a glovebox and central cubby under the armrest.

The 2 Series Coupe isn’t an especially long car, making it fairly easy to park despite the noticeable blindspot around the rear roof pillar. To make things easier, add the optional front parking sensors, rear parking camera or automatic parking functions.

Swallowing 390 litres with the rear seats in place, the 2 Series Coupe boasts a surprisingly large overall luggage capacity. However, making use of that bootspace is another matter thanks to the narrow opening and high boot loading lip. The wheelarches are also quite intrusive, making it hard to store wider items.

Stick to softer luggage which isn’t so rigid and there’s a genuinely useful level of space to exploit, while the Extended Storage Pack provides netting to keep things in place and a foldable hatch inbetween the two middle seats should you want to transport skis or other long items. The outer rear seats can also be folded down.

Safe and secure 2 Series

• Decent level of standard safety equipment
• Not tested by Euro NCAP safety experts
• Two Isofix points on outer rear seats

Given its age, the BMW 2 Series Coupe won’t now be tested by the crash experts at Euro NCAP, but should perform as well as its five-star safety-rated sibling, the previous-generation 1 Series in the event of an accident.

Worth noting, however, is that almost all of the car’s safety tech is only available as an optional extra in the Driving Assistant pack and cannot be specced as standard. Included in the pack is City Collision Mitigation which will first warn the driver, and then apply the brakes if the vehicle detects an accident is imminent.

This is joined by Attentiveness Assistant, Forward Collision Warning, Lane Departure Warning and Automatic Emergency Braking.

Other optional safety kit includes adaptive cruise control and automatic high-beam LED headlights.

Those who frequently ferry kids around will be pleased to note that there are a couple of Isofix points in the back of the 2 Series, but given those aforementioned roofline issues, child seats will be a chore to install and remove back there.