Concept Touring Coupe has already been signalled out as the likely farewell for the Z4 ahead of its production wrapping-up in 2025. Image: BMW
BMW’s Head of Design has spoken out further on the prospects of Munich producing more than the single Concept Touring Coupe shown at the Villa d’Este Concorso d’Eleganza in Italy this past weekend.
Billed as a tribute to the 328 Touring Coupé that won the Mille Miglia in 1940, the one-off concept has, however, already been tipped as the replacement for the Z3 M Coupe that left production in 2002 after four years.
Dubbed the clown shoe for its station wagon-styled shooting brake design, only 6 291 units emerged from the now X-model plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, as one of the rarest production BMWs ever made.
Despite maintaining the Concept Touring Coupe to be nothing but a one-off for now, Adrian van Hooydonk subsequently stated that limited production will be looked into should more interest be garnered over the coming months.
In an interview with Britain’s Top Gear Magazine after the concept’s reveal, van Hooydonk said reception to some of its past concepts at the event were positively received, but admitted that calls for them be produced in large numbers eventually fell through “because [they] become too difficult” to build.
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“We’ve gone through that cycle with the [new M4] CSL recently. Now we know what it takes. So it would be feasible. It would be possible,” van Hooydonk said.
He added that unlike the Z3 M Coupe, production, should approval be given, would be less limited due to it being a niche product speculative claims have already dubbed the final farewell for model on which it is based, the Z4, whose assembly will come to an end by 2025.
“It’s probably best to keep it outside of the main organisation because our factory produces 1 000 cars a day. If I ask them, ‘excuse me, I’ve got this idea for 50’, they might not want to take my call,” van Hooydonk said.
“If it were up to me, I’d be happy if we could do 50, like we did of the CSL. If we could do that year after year, or every second year, that would be a great thing, because then you keep adding classics to the lineage.”
The executive didn’t stop there as apart from confirming the Concept Touring Coupe being powered by a 3.0-litre straight-six engine, let slip that the unit is in fact brand-new and producing around 298 kW, significantly more than the 285 kW made by the mill in the current Z4 M40i and in its twin, the Toyota Supra.
Despite not mentioning the Supra by name, van Hooydonk stated that should it go ahead with manufacturing, the Concept Touring Coupe could be offered with a six-speed manual gearbox reported as far back as July last year, to be on the cards for the M40i now that it features in the Supra.
“We offer a manual now in the Z4, so you could combine these ingredients into a very nice driving car,” van Hooydonk said in added reference to the updated Z4 sDrive 20i being equipped with a three-pedal layout in Europe.
For now though, the Concept Touring Coupe remains a one-off but should limited production become a certainty, chances are they will only become reality either towards the end of this year or in 2024.
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