The BMW Compact is an automobile made by BMW in two generations from 1994 until 2004 . The BMW Compact is a compact car \/ small family car , basically a truncated liftback version of the BMW 3 Series , produced by the German automaker BMW between 1993 and 2004 . From 1994 , it was based on the BMW E36 platform , switching to the BMW E46 platform in 2001 .