Coupes, or cars with two doors, are desirable. Even in Singapore, where automobiles are expensive and often required to pull multiple duties, they’re still an appealing choice.

But giving anyone other than your date a lift is a pain, and often requires circus-level contortion of both human and machine.

BMW’s latest car aims to help with this first-world problem: The 4 Series Gran Coupe is the latest in the relatively new segment, four-door coupes, which was kick-started by the Mercedes-Benz CLS-Class in 2004.

BMW already has a larger four-door Gran Coupe as part of its 6 Series range, and it competes with the CLS and the Audi A7 Sportback. The smaller 4 Series GC’s main competitor, in comparison, will be the Audi A5 Sportback.

Like the rest of the 4 Series models, the Gran Coupe is based on the 3 Series sedan, although it’s slightly lower, with a sleeker rear end design and rimless doors. It’s hard to spot the difference in photos now, but if experience is any gauge, it’ll be easier to tell them apart in real life.

It’s got the same boot space as the sedan, or 480-litres, although it has a sloping, fastback style rear hatch – with the rear seats folded down it packs 1,300-litres of space, which adds considerably to the car’s practicality.

Like the A5 Sportback, the hatchback means the loading aperture is wide and user-friendly, unlike the boot of a sedan – but it also means the car is, if you want to be pedantic, a ‘five-door coupe’.

The engine choices are famliar ones: The range-topping 435i Gran Coupe has a 306bhp, 3.0-litre, turbocharged inline six cylinder engine, which allows it to crack 0-100km/h in a scant 5.2 seconds on to its 250km/h electronically-limited top-speed.

Its efficiency figures are also impressive for a car with this sort of performance, 7.5L/100km and 174g/km of CO2. Lesser variants include the 245bhp 428i and 184bhp 420i, both powered by a 2.0-litre, inline four-cylinder turbocharged engine.

The 4 Series Gran Coupe has been confirmed for launch in Singapore in the third quarter of 2014.

The addition of the Gran Coupe to the 4 Series line-up means there are three variants, including the Coupe (yes, it’s got two doors) and the also recently-launched Cabriolet version. Stay tuned for our test drive review of the 435i Cabriolet at its debut in Las Vegas next week!