New BMW 8 Series: The Germans' most luxurious (and expensive) car ever?

The new BMW 8 Series

25 MAY 2017 • 6:52PM

The world’s most beautiful car show is happening this weekend on the shores of Lake Como in the grounds of the Villa d’Este. Making a bid for early headlines is this, the new BMW 8 Series. On sale next year and looking close-to-identical to this “concept”, the new 8 Series will be BMW’s flagship car; its most luxurious, clever, quite possibly most expensive yet, but it’s also the car it hopes will take the brand back into the winner’s circle at Le Mans.

BMW Eight Series

The number eight is a potent one at BMW. The 8 Series of the 1990s was a technological tour-de-force that trail-blazed a new era of electronics in cars. With V8 and V12 engines, pop-up headlamps and a singular profile it ploughed a rare groove, but is currently ripe for reassessment and reclassification as a solid gold classic.

The BMW Z8 followed and was similarly misunderstood. The Z8 heralded a new era of narrative design - widely described as retro-futurism - by very deliberately aping the look of BMW’s 507 roadster from the 1950s. It was and is a drop-dead beautiful car. Clever too with its aluminium structure, yet it failed to make as many friends as it might for, of all things, not being quite as dynamic as a Porsche 911. As if that mattered in a car as beautiful as the Z8.

So here, after a break of nearly 14 years, is the new 8 Series and in spirit at least, it’s the child of both its predecessors; intelligent in the way it’s put together and in electronics, and possessed of an elegance that while solidly forward-looking has an undeniably classical form. I think it’s absolutely beautiful, but then again I am a sucker for front-engined GT cars.

BMW Eight Series
The classic form of the new car

The new 8 Series ticks all the boxes it should for men and women of a certain understated profile that know mid-engined cars belong on the race track. It’s appropriate that BMW has chosen to introduce the new model at the Villa d’Este and its annual Concorso d’Eleganza, an invite-only garden party for the world’s most beautiful cars.

The Villa d’Este exudes a glamour lost, or if not then rapidly disappearing, in travel. GT cars hang on to the notion of long journeys undertaken for their own sake and always in intimate company with beautiful luggage, carefully packed and stashed behind. Mid-engined cars are great for the day; GTs are made for longer relationships.

 BMW Eight Series
The all new model

Not that the new eight is in any way soft. It will in fairly short order spawn an M8 derivative and this will form the basis for BMW’s factory return to the World Endurance Championship (WEC) and the Le Mans 24 Hour race, which it won in 1999, and in partnership with McLaren in 1995. The M8 racer will compete in the GT classes of the WEC against cars like reigning Le Mans champions Ford with its purpose-built GT and WEC champions Ferrari with its 488GTE. Not that old-school front engined cars have been left behind by the mid-engined cars. Before Ferrari and Ford were slugging it out, the battle for Le Mans honours was fought between Chevrolet Corvettes and Aston Martins.

And oddly if the new 8 Series brings any comparisons to mind it is Aston Martin’s DB9. And that’s reassuring; the 8 Series is based on the aluminium and carbon-fibre dense structure of the 7 Series. BMW could so easily have made it closer in spirit to a two-door 7 Series, as Mercedes-Benz does with its own S-Class Coupe. That the BMW clearly has just token rear seats, and a profile and stance that speak of its ambition on the race track scream “proper GT” and not “two-door limo". The definitive production car will be shown later this year but don’t expect to see anything radically different to this car.  BMW spent last year celebrating its centenary by looking forward as well as back. As a statement of future intent I’d say the new 8 Series embraces that strategy just about perfectly.

bmw.co.uk