(engine revving)
- Your parents, Deb and Chip, love this car.
In fact, every boomer does
because boomers love expensive stuff,
because they're the only people
with any freakin' money these days.
You know who else has money?
Freakin' James Bond, the original cool guy
and he gave up his Aston Martin for one of these.
It was probably the best example of modern retro ever made,
so stick around because in this episode
we're gonna find out how BMW plotted
to make an instant classic from the very beginning.
(engine revving)
(tires screeching)
(engine revving)
This is everything you need to know
to get up to speed on the BMW Zate.
What, oh Z8?
Oh, yeah that makes more sense.
Z8, I'm just kidding I'm shootin' this in my garage.
There's no one here.
Cue dat music.
(video game music)
- [Robot] Three, two, one.
- I wanna give a big shout out to this week's sponsor,
thanks a lot Vitagoods.
As a lot of you guys know, I had a heart scare
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Take it from me, this is a lot easier than I thought.
If you look at old videos of me, I was soaking wet
and sweating in every episode.
Now, the only reason I'm sweating is because I'm shooting
in my garage and it's 120 degrees in here.
And I want you guys to get healthier,
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The discounts for stuff and our sponsorships
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These guys are really hooking it up.
Thanks a lot, Vitagoods.
And guys, let's get healthy together.
Now back to the show.
The story of one of BMW's most unique cars
starts with one of its biggest failures.
Now lucky for us that didn't stop them
from taking another crack at it.
It was based on a 40 year old car
and even now at 20 years old, it's still
literally does not look dated at all.
BMW planned to turn it
into a modern collector's car all along,
so how did they pull that off?
Now the original idea for this car
had been bouncing around BMW for a while.
So in 1993, the BWM board was in Saint-Tropez.
The head of the board, Eberhard von Kuenheim
was about to retire so all of his buddies
brought BMWs from each of the years
that he had worked there.
One guy, though, the head of development
brought a BMW 507, which technically wasn't
from one of those years.
But the 507 turned out to be everyone's favorite car
to drive and this group of guys was the board of BMWs
so they were allowed to tell BMW what to make.
So they decided hey,
we should make a modern version of this.
So they left Saint-Tropez and went back to Germany
and told the head of design to get his department started
on drawing up some concept car ideas.
That head of design was Chris Bangle
and when he asked his team who wanted to do it,
a dude named Henrik Fisker raised his hand.
- Hime.
- Now you've probably heard of both Bangle and Fisker.
Yeah, that Fisker.
And we're gonna get into the Z8,
it's a pretty cool story, but before we get into that
we have to understand this beautiful 507
that inspired the board members to have it drawn up.
And to do that, we have to go back
(rewinding tape)
in time.
The 507 was one of the most beautiful
and unsuccessful BMWs ever made.
In 1954 a dude named Max Hoffman who was a luxury importer
in New York saw a gap in the sports car market.
He thought that there was room for something new
between MGs and Triumphs and the pricier Mercedes 300SL
so he somehow convinced BMW to build a car.
Albrecht Von Goertz designed the curvy,
hand-formed aluminum body,
and 11 of 'em got handmade removable hardtops.
Now the tops are so unique to each car
that they can't be put on one another.
They only fit the car they were built to.
They look incredible.
They had double wishbone front suspension
and a 3.2 liter V8 under the hood in 1954.
How is this not a huge success?
It's like I always say, man.
Mo' money, mo' problems.
Give daddy some sugar.
(pecking kiss)
The new sports car was projected to cost $5,000 dollars
in 1956 and BMW thought they'd sell 5,000 of them per year,
but it was twice as expensive to build as they expected
and it ended up going on sale for $10,000 dollars instead.
That's almost 90 grand today
and was a much tougher sell back then.
BMW only built 252 of 'em over four years
and lost money on every single one.
Several famous people have 507s but unfortunately,
it didn't really help BMW sell enough of 'em.
Elvis Presley drove two BMW 507s.
When he was stationed in Germany with the US Army,
he leased a used white one with a hardtop,
the same one racing legend Hans Stuck had actually raced.
Now Elvis actually thought that he was buying the car,
not just leasing it,
but he couldn't read the German paperwork
and no amount of swivelin' hips would change BMWs minds
about the lease contract he signed.
Anyway, 507s are super rare and now they sell for millions
and millions of dollars at fancy auctions.
So when Henry Fisker started designing a new interpretation
of the 507, he had some pretty big shoes to fill.
The modern retro styling fad was just about to take off
and we all know those turned out pretty hit or miss,
but when you're starting out
with a classic sports car's shape
it shouldn't be hard to not mess it up.
And he didn't mess it up, like at all.
I mean this is the guy who went on
to design the Aston Martin V8 Vantage and the Fisker Karma,
so I think he knew a thing or two
about drawing pretty cool cars.
Just like buff ones, just look at that car
and look at that car.
They're both just muscly,
muscle heads look like a sexy bulldog.
The BMW Z07 concept stuck with the classic long hood
and short rear deck.
With the driver sitting closer to the rear wheels
than the front, it stayed true to the 507's design
while also looking fresh and unique in its own way.
So you won't be shocked to hear that it was a huge hit
at the 97 Tokyo Motor Show, mostly with the press
and old dudes, I'm guessing probably.
It didn't have a lot of the wild one-off concept car stuff
that never makes it past the auto show circuit.
So it looked very likely that the concept
and the real thing would be very similar.
Prototypes were spotted testing
for years before it came out.
(engine revving)
(tires screeching)
Engineers ran them with Porsche 911 Cabriolets
on the Nurburgring.
Remember those old paper books car lovers used to read
in the 90s while droppin' a deuce?
Magazines, right.
They thought that a coupe version might get made
but product planners thought that roadster
would be more popular.
When the production Z8 came out for the year 2000,
just about the only things that didn't carry over
from the concept car were the hump behind the driver
and the double bubble hardtop.
Double, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble.
Now even the split five spoke wheel design hardly changed,
but the ultimate endorsement came directly
from the 507's original design.
Mr. Albrecht Von Goertz said that if he designed the new car
it would've looked just like the Z8.
BMW freaks immediately, lost their pants
and couldn't wait to get their hands on one.
(metal clanking)
- Hugh's not gonna like this.
- For maximum publicity, BMW managed to get James Bond
out of an Aston Martin and into a Z8.
The 19th '007 film, The World is Not Enough
came out around the same time as the new car.
Convenient, but it had to be shot way earlier
than the car's launch.
So a bunch of pre-production Z8 replicas were made
out of fiberglass and had Chevy 350 V8 crate motors.
A fiberglass Z8 with an LS in it?
Doesn't sound not cool.
The real Z8 came with a 4.9 liter s62 V8
that had recently debuted in the new M5
with Vanos variable valve timing, German VTech,
394 very logical German horsepower
and 368 pound feat of twerks.
It was the most powerful engine BMW
had ever put in a street car and now
it was in a two-seater that weighed way less
than the sedan.
(engine revving)
That meant it was a bit quicker.
It even turned out to be a bit quicker
than the Ferrari 360 Modena.
You had no choice but to row your own gears,
because a 6P manual was the only transmission
that you could get and they all had an LSD.
BMW didn't compromise anywhere on the Z8.
Convertibles could normally feel kinda floppy
compared to coupes and sedans but the Z8
was filled with 187 total feat of fully welded seams
and 1,000 rivets.
That made it two times stiffer
than any other convertible sold at the time.
(engine revving)
The body and the chassis were both alumininium
and the body panels bolted on so they'd be easy to fix.
You know, if it got chopped in half.
Every car also came with a removable aluminum hardtop
that was designed to look more like it actually belonged
on the car, not just a goofy metal hat.
The tail lights and turn signals weren't LEDs
but they were neon tubes.
Even the white backup light was somehow disguised
behind a red lens when it was off
to keep the rear end looking symmetrical.
Guys, I'm a fan of tail lights.
I own one project car
and I have four sets of tail lights for it.
And they didn't stop at the exterior,
because the interior was designed by Scott Lempert
to look super clean and vintage.
BMW engineers came up with clever ways
to hide or combine controls.
All of the gauges were in the center
so they wouldn't distract the driver
from their view of the road.
(engine revving)
When you bought a Z8, you got a lot for your money
but you also had to spend a lot of your money.
They started at 129k and went up from there
not because of extra options,
but because dealers marked them up.
If the Z8 was on sale today it would cost 195 grand.
You can get a Porsche 911 that performs better
in every way for less than that now,
but it just doesn't have that same era of exclusivity
that the Z8 still does.
Everyone knew they were going to be collectible
from the start.
A low-production roadster with a (beep) V8
and a stick shift from the legendary German manufacturer?
It was a no brainer.
On the used market,
they've never dropped much below $70 thousand dollars
and now you can barely find one for less than 150.
The Z8 was a limited production run with 5703 cars made
over four years.
This thing (beep), man.
(engine revving)
A sporty, luxurious, German roadster
with tons of horsepower?
Hell yeah, when I get to be an old man
and have a bunch of money sign me the freak up.
The Z8 Forum is full of old dudes geeking out
about their cars with tons of super long winded posts,
production info, pictures, and links to old car reviews.
They're the future versions of all of us
and we totally used it to research this episode.
So thanks old guys.
For their final year of production,
the Z8 became the Alpina Roadster V8.
BMW sent 555 Roadsters over to their famous tuning friends
at Alpina for customization.
Now Alpina is usually known
for kickin' things up a few notches
but this time they respected the car
and didn't go too crazy.
Now, originally it was rumored that these cars
were gonna have a V12 put into 'em,
but the 12 wouldn't fit.
God, never anything sadder in my freakin' life.
So the M5 engine was replaced with the 4.8 liter M62 V8
from the X5 SUV.
Alpina bumped it up to 375 horsepower
which was actually about 20 horsepower less
than the original Z8.
But they also gave it more torque.
It made 15 more pound feat in it kicked in
in lower revs, too.
The extra low end grunt suited the Roadster's better
since they were mostly used as grand tourers
and not pure sports cars.
Another thing that was better suited to the GT Cruiser
was an automatic.
So, the six-speed manual was ditched
for a manually shifted five-speed auto.
Maybe that's why the US got 450 of the 555 Alpinas
but less than half of the regular Z8s.
Because we like automatics, I guess?
They added huge 20 inch wheels with Alpina's signature,
multi-spoke design and its suspension
was softened for a more relaxing ride.
You know, for those old man backs.
Roadsters were sold through BMW dealers
for 137 grand making it the first time Alpinas
were officially available in North America.
And today, they'll usually sell
for around $200 thousand dollars.
Now as a halo car, the BMW Z8 was a remarkable one.
Can you imagine how the BMW I8 is gonna age
compared to the Z8?
(sirens wailing)
Hey guys, we've worked really hard in the past
to provide you with a bunch of really cool shirt options,
this one included.
But up until this point I want to apologize
because we've left your legs out of the mix.
Out of the mix.
And I don't wanna leave anyone out of the mix.
We're all about community here,
so starting now we have Donut.
(error dinging)
All right, dude.
How do you switch in regular?
Sweatpants, they're so new that I don't even have a pair.
These are really high quality.
We spent the extra dough on 'em
and they're comparable to like our hoodies,
but they're for your legs.
They say "P.E." which stands for Performance Education.
I know, it's very funny and very cool.
I came up with it myself.
They're great in the car, they're great to sit around
and play Zelda, ask my girlfriend.
And they're great to you know sit in your garage
at your workbench and do conference calls
and make videos alone.
(chuckles)
Ask me how I know.
Go to DonutMedia.com.
Cop yourself some.
I can't wait to wear mine, I can't wait to see all
of your pretty little buns wearin' yours.
Thank you guys so much for watchin' this episode
of Up To Speed.
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