Apart from the occasional unique Rolls-Royce, most of us thought that coachbuilding was a lost art that died many decades ago. It is one thing to design a pretty concept for car shows and another to actually build it. BMW has a long story in the unveiling of beautiful single -roses in Concorso d’Elanza Villa d’Este, but until recently nobody went into production. There was a skytop last year, followed by The Speedtop. But what if you wanted something with Italian flair? Enter the Bovensiepen Zagato.
We saw the M4 stunner for the first time in Villa d’Este and shortly afterwards at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. The Coachbuilt BMW will be debut in North America in the Monterey Car Week about Concept Car Lawn (August 8th to 17th) and will be released on August 15th in the quail, a motorsport meeting.
Although a coupe, the car is actually based on the M4 convertible, hence the lack of B-pillars. The Italian design house has already worked on BMWS (remember the Zagato Coupé and Roadster?), But this is his first project based on an M4. Zagato worked with Andreas and Florian Bovensiepen, sons of the late Alpina founder Burkard Bovensiepen to bring the car to life, double roof and everything.
For reasons of clarity, the car does not come from the traditional Alpina company, now under the roof of the BMW group. Instead, the two brothers founded a separate company, Bovensiepen Automobile, which is also based in Buchloe, like the historic company that her late father began 60 years ago.
The Americans will now see the G83-based coupé up close and carry a new carbon fiber skin over its original body. The Bovensiepen Zagato has a double corporation because removing the BMW panels would have required the car new homologies. You can imagine that it would have been a costly process for a newly founded company. Keeping the OEM panels also means that the coupé is as safe as its BMW counterpart.
Bovensiepen has compensated for part of the weight penalty by placing the chunky roof mechanism of the M4 Cabriolo. The coupé is actually 50 kilograms lighter than the G83, whereby the scale wakes up at 1,875 kg (4.133 lbs). While massive changes have been made, the laser jiggles are a clear giveaway that is based on a series of 4.
There is no manual transmission because this should be a GT. Adaptation of a third pedal would have been difficult anyway, since the M4 convertible comes exclusively with all-wheel drive. All XDrive cars from BMW are only displayed in automatic guise. Bovensiepen has unlocked an additional 79 hp and 50 Nm (37 LB-FT) from the 3.0-liter inline-SIX of S58 Twin-Turbo. However, the convertible button is more about the unique design.
Bovensiepen has not completed the prices, but the few planned examples will report € 400,000 to € 500,000. According to rumors, BMW has calculated wealthy buyers half a million euros for the sold -out skytop and speedtop. The Targa Cabrio and the shooting brake were both based on the larger M8.
