• Available for £125,000 but more likely £175k
• 4.9-litre V8 petrol, rear-wheel drive
• Timelessly simple design is coming good   
• Not a sports car but a fine seven-tenths machine
• Quite a few niggly problems, good community to help
• Prices are high anyway, and not going down

In the late 1950s, BMW produced the 507, an elegant two-seat convertible powered by a 3.2-litre V8. It was a BMW USA-inspired project that was intended as an alternative to British sportsters and Mercedes’s pricey 300SL. Elvis Presley drove one, but just like The King the 507 died a premature death with only 252 examples built. It wasn’t helped by its expensive spaceframe construction or by the odd decision to fit it with enormous 29-gallon fuel tanks. These cut hard into the passenger and luggage space and gave the cabin a distinctively combustive aroma when the roof was up. 

Clearly, BMW felt the need for some sort of closure on that project because 38 years after the 507 was withdrawn from sale the Z07 Concept was presented at the 1997 Tokyo show. Designed under Chris Bangle’s stewardship by Henrik Fisker (later of Aston DB9 and Fisker Automotive fame) it was a 507 homage that made a positive impression on many viewers. It went into production as the Z8 with very few alterations, principal among these being the deletion of the Zagato-style double bubble hardtop and of the ’50s-style helmet fairing behind the driver’s nut to facilitate operation of the soft top. The Concept’s centrelock wheels were binned too.

The Z8 was mostly put together in Dingolfing, a good name for an ex-golfer’s house, and hand-finished in Munich. Not sure what that process entailed but it sounded good, or bad if you prefer your cars to be robot-finished. Like the 507 the Z8 had a spaceframe chassis. Also like the 507 it had a V8, but this time it was the 4.9 litre S62 used for the E39 M5, mated to a 6-speed Getrag manual. The S62 was the hot version of BMW’s aluminium-blocked M62 V8 that had previously been seen in the E39 M40i, E38 740i and L322 Range Rover. As the first BMW V8 to have VANOS variable valve timing on both camshafts. In the Z8 it produced just under 400hp at a hefty 6,600rpm, not a huge amount per litre and down in that regard not only on the E46 M3 of the time but also on the earlier 3.8 E34 M5. 

Again like the 507 the Z8’s aluminium bodywork was unbesmirched by any model badging. All you got were BMW roundels, so if you weren’t familiar with it you had to look through the window to see the Z8 badges between the headrests. The 1999 Bond film The World Is Not Enough raised its profile in a brutal fashion by allowing the baddie to saw one in half from a helicopter. 

The interior design was attention-grabbing in that there were no clocks ahead of the driver behind the spoked aluminium ‘wire’ steering wheel. The front-lit looking instrumentation was all centralised. There were more quirky features like repeater indicators in the side vents that you couldn’t see until they were on. These along with the rear lights were neon because LEDs weren’t available to cars at that time.

5,700 Z8s were built, deliveries to Europe starting in early 2000 and to the US from August that year. More than 40 per cent of the production output went to the USA, where a Titanium Silver one was bought by the late Apple boss Steve Jobs. No right-hand drive cars were made but a number of ‘official’ LHD cars were allocated to the UK. Some say 70, others 150. Going off the number of cars still running around in the UK we’re going to plump for the smaller figure. 

An Alpina Roadster V8 replaced the straight Z8 in 2003 as a sort of sendoff gesture for the model, the Z8 line having ground to a halt in November ‘02. Unusually for something with an Alpina badge, the Roadster V8 was pitched at a more cruisey market than the Z8. It had a smaller, lower-powered but torquier 375hp/383lb ft 4.8 litre M62 engine, running through a 5-speed Steptronic auto. The top speed was increased to 161mph but there was no manual option. The Z8’s 18-inch wheels with Bridgestone Potenza runflat tyres were replaced by conventionally-shod 20-inch Alpina wheels attached to softer suspension. A more conventional steering wheel was fitted because shift paddles couldn’t be used with the wire one. A more delicate Nappa leather was used for the cabin. 

555 of these Alpinas were built, four in every five of them going to the American market, cementing the car’s boulevardier image. It was the first Alpina to be sold directly through BMW dealerships in the US. Only seven or eight of these came to the UK. 

Today the Z8 definitely has something of the Marmite about it. The range of emotions it evokes runs from unconditional love at one end to price incredulity at the other. Some think the Z8 is the best-looking modern BMW, demonstrating once again (for the lovers at least) the Chris Bangle ‘delayed detonation’ effect. Looks apart, it was not a classic drive. Although its mid-four-second 0-60mph time wouldn’t be sniffed at even now, the chassis (shorn of the M5’s limited slip differential) was stodgy, the suspension seemed less than ideally matched to the 1,660kg weight of the car, and the windrush in the open cabin at any sort of speed would blow your toupee right off. 

None of that matters because the market says they’re worth a lot of money now. You’ll rarely see more than a handful of Z8s for sale in the UK at any one time. The overwhelming majority of these will have covered fewer than 25,000 miles, with prices starting at around £180,000. That’s a far cry from the mid-2000s when they were going for as little as £40k, having dropped to that point from their near-£87,000 new price in 1998.

In the course of our research for this article we did find a privately-owned 65,000-mile car for sale at just under £126,000, and we know that some cars have crossed the 100,000-mile threshold, but the realistic average price of a Z8 in the UK in July 2023 was nearer to £175-£180k. That does seem like a lot of money for what was once such a deeply unfashionable car, one that has never inspired drivers on a fast road, and one that’s not even especially rare, globally speaking at any rate – but if you want to buy into one of the more unusual chapters of BMW history, well, them’s the prices. 

And in case you’re thinking they’re bound to be a lot cheaper in the US, think again. They’re not. In October 2022 a 5,000-mile Topaz blue example with the optional hardtop sold at auction in the States for $445,000, a new record for the Z8. 

Engine: 4,941cc V8 32v
Transmission: 6-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power (hp): 395@6,600rpm
Torque (lb ft): 369@3,800rpm
0-62mph (secs): 4.7
Top speed (mph): 155
Weight (kg): 1,660
MPG (official combined): 19.5
CO2 (g/km): 349
Wheels (in): 8×18 (f), 9×18 (r)
Tyres: 245/45 (f), 275/40 (r)
On sale: 2015 – 2023
Price new: £86,650
Price now: from £125,000

Note for reference: car weight and power data is hard to pin down with absolute certainty. For consistency, we use the same source for all our guides. We hope the data we use is right more often than it’s wrong. Our advice is to treat it as relative rather than definitive.  

At the time of the Z8’s arrival, its 4.9 litre S62 V8 was BMW’s most powerful production engine. As noted earlier it was also used in the M5. As well as variable valve timing it had individual throttle bodies but not the lightweight manifolds you saw in ‘proper’ M cars. Maximum power was developed at 6,600rpm, not far short of the 7,000rpm rev limit. The top speed was restricted to 155mph but rumours (maybe leaked by BMW) suggested that 180mph was possible. Its best points were its smoothness and driveability. You could tell it was a V8 but it was never in your face with that. A Sport button on the panel ahead of the gearstick quickened up the throttle response but you didn’t need it really. 

Timing was by chain rather than belt but, as in the M5, the Z8 engine could suffer from generic issues like dying VANOS solenoids and cam sensors, oil leaks from the valve covers, and problems with the timing chain guides at higher mileages –fortunately, not something that many Z8s are lumbered with.

Even Z8s couldn’t escape the march of time, though. They’re over 20 years old now and some of the plastic parts in the cooling system can become brittle. Two small coolant hoses are known for failing and they are difficult to access. Fuel pumps start to die once the 50k mile mark has been passed and would certainly be conk-out suspects at 100,000 miles. Pushing the start button and hearing a single click is the normal warning sign for that.  

Starting problems have in some cases been traced back to starter motor solenoids but most of the difficulties in this area would be down to battery condition. The official BMW trickle charger wasn’t up to the job of coping with the normal system drain. AGM (Absorbent Glass Mat) batteries are now recommended by Z8 owners’ clubs. 

The gearstick gave you a reliable connection with the Getrag gearbox and had a shorter throw than the M5 but the action was still pretty deliberate and not quick. Clutch action was light. At the end of the day, you’re looking at a very driveable and very usable manual V8. How many of those can you think of? The cool thing about a Z8 of course is that any BMW dealer or specialist will be able to look after it. Just put ‘BMW Z8 servicing’ into your browser and see how many normal garages are offering it. Whether you’d offer your Z8 to some of them is another matter of course.

BMW made strenuous efforts to keep the Z8’s weight down by using aluminium wherever possible in the chassis, most notably in the spaceframe itself which was made of extrusion-pressed beams, 1,000 or so rivets, and about 60 metres of MIG weld seams attaching it to the body panels. The suspension was five-link at the rear with MacPherson struts and lower wishbones at the front. BMW’s DSC stability control system was included, and for the first time on a V8 BMW the Z8 had rack and pinion steering instead of recirculating ball, but journalists on the launch tests were not big fans of it.  

The 334mm/328mm braking system was pinched from the 750i and therefore easily capable of arresting the Z8 without drama, but the absence of the M5’s limited slip diff didn’t sharpen up the handling, which was characterised by jagged transitions between grip and slip and dogged understeer through slower corners. The Moto GP organisation used it as a safety car but only for one year.

 Despite its 50/50 weight distribution (achieved by locating the engine well back in the bay) and classic BMW rear-wheel drive the Z8 felt more like a big saloon than a two-seat sports car. Really it was a grand tourer, a fact tacitly acknowledged by the production of the Alpina variant. You had to accept the car’s limitations and drive it accordingly, feeling the noise rather than the nuances.

There was a bit of an issue with the spaceframe chassis which might be of interest to anyone thinking of driving one hard on British roads, which was that the front suspension mounts were known to distort if a bad pothole was hit. The hard-riding runflat tyres didn’t help but BMW released a strut tower brace kit in 2006 to stabilise that part of the frame. 

Front suspension looseness accompanied by a rumble through the steering column and a steering ‘shimmy’ was experienced by some owners. In some instances, BMW replaced several parts (steering column, brake pads and discs, ball joints, wheel bearings, anti-roll bars, engine mounts) in a piecemeal and somewhat random fashion in an effort to hit the target. Replacing the factory fluid-filled suspension bushings on the inner and outer control arms and the front strut rods with poly bushings worked for some, although they did alter the driving characteristics of the car. Others found replacing flat-spotted tyres to be the answer. 

Some consider the Z8 to be the best-looking modern BMW. It might be less controversial to say that the Z8’s aluminium body with plastic bumpers looks better now than it did back in period. That would be the Chris Bangle ‘delayed detonation’ effect coming into play once more. 

The upright screens front and rear and the flattened front grilles incorporating chrome-bezelled high beam lights (not driving lights) were more 507 than modern corporate. Chrome featured heavily on the car, including on the door mirrors whose glass could delaminate. This use of chrome was another bold retro touch but it didn’t sit that easily with the standard matt grey alloy five-spoke wheels. Many American owners switched to different alloys to create a stronger contrast. 

There were five body paint choices, three of them being black, grey and silver. Titanium Silver accounted for well over half of the total production run at around 3,200 cars. 1,570 of the remainder were in black. 319 Topaz Blue cars were made, 291 in Bright Red and 192 in Stratus Grey. Used examples in either of these primary colours hardly ever come up for sale. This is a massive shame because silver and grey don’t do the car’s interesting lines that many favours. Some 124 cars went through the BMW Individual customisation programme. Nineteen had a two-tone finish: eleven were cream on Stratus Grey, seven were silver on black, and one was carbon black over silver. As you would expect these Individual Z8s are extremely uncommon on the used market. 

The hood was electrically operated and had a tonneau cover if you wanted a neater look when it was down. The plastic tabs on this tonneau cover could break, and annoyingly BMW did not sell them as separate items. You had to buy a whole new tonneau at a cost of over £1,500. The rear window could cloud up and come adrift from the fabric. The roof mechanism could get out of adjustment resulting in inaccurate docking. Often it would be down to the failure of the clip for the safety string that pulled the roof fabric out of the way on fold-down. When it failed it allowed the ‘scissor’ mechanism to cut the hood fabric. This was the subject of a recall. Later cars had a redesigned hood that fixed the issue so there should be no affected cars still around. 

If the roof didn’t move when you asked it to, the issue could often be solved by lowering and raising the windows, or if you were really lucky by turning the whole car off and on again. Sometimes however it would be a busted microswitch. There was a manual override to help you out if you could find the relevant section in the owner’s manual. 

A colour-matched 27kg factory hardtop was provided with the car, but using one of those to cut out any of the V8 roar seemed like a peculiar choice for this kind of high days and holidays car. The Z8 was at its best with the hood down, but as mentioned earlier the windrush at speed wasn’t that comfortable for the occupants. The wind deflector did improve matters but wasn’t a total solution. 

The Xenon headlamp lenses became fogged over time by a film on the inside of the lenses. Interestingly it seemed that this was only an issue on US cars. It has therefore been put down by some to the sealed units springing a leak during air transport, which is how they were delivered to the States. The bolts holding the bootlid could become loose, in the worst-case scenario allowing the leading edge of the lid to chip the paint off the spacer section between the boot lid and the roof. Gas boot struts failed.

The fast-acting neon indicator and tail lights were supposed to last for the lifetime of the car but didn’t. They are expensive to replace and hard to find. When the Z8 came out BMW committed to maintaining a 50-year parts supply for it but there’s been some grumbling in the Z8 community about the reality of this promise. These are not the only Z8-specific factory parts that can hit your pocket hard. 

Having splashed expensive ‘French stitched’ leather all over the Z8’s cabin – not just the lower dash, dash top, steering wheel and seats but also the rollover hoops – it was odd that BMW chose body-coloured plastic for the main dash section, the cabin’s most visible piece of real estate. Admittedly it provided a good visual impact in primary-coloured cars but the idea definitely worked better there than it did on silver cars. 

The leather on top of the dash was prone to coming unglued around the screen heating vents. Fixing this dashboard delamination was a pricey job at over £2k including labour. Clips holding the seat back leather in place failed on several cars and the rearview mirror was subject to discolouration.   

There were probably more buttons on the free Motorola Star Tac flip-phone (famously hated by owner Steve Jobs) than there were in the rest of the Z8 interior, where functions were combined into as small a number of simple, Z8-unique controls as possible. Windows and mirrors were adjusted by a single metal button on the driver’s door. The wheel was electrically adjustable for rake but not tilt. The radio incorporated a very early sat nav system that took many minutes to programme. 

Boosting the Z8’s credentials as a grand tourer was its luxuriously carpeted boot. Even with the battery sited under the floor to help with the weight distribution there was good cargo space in there, supplemented by neat locking cubbies behind the seats. There was a locking glovebox too but these were famous for refusing to open, as was the cover for the phone hatch which was controlled by the same circuit. Door storage compartment lids didn’t always close either and seat heaters sometimes failed to heat. Air con drainage tubes clogged up, causing dampness in the footwells. 

The ignition key looked like any other BMW ignition key other than having a ‘Z8’ plate rather crudely screwed to the back of it. To cover its and their embarrassment BMW supplied a zip-up leather pouch for it. You needed to use that if you had a key ring because there was no ring provision on the key itself. When the key battery died you couldn’t open the housing to replace it. You had to buy a new key at some expense which then had to be linked to the car. 

Once, Z8s were cheap. Now they’re mightily expensive, which might seem odd when you consider how many were made. Nevertheless, the Z8 is BMW’s rarest modern convertible. The number for sale versus the number built does suggest that quite a few are being stored away for a better day, which may well be inflating prices. 

Having said that, fewer than fifty were licensed for UK roads as of mid-2023. As long as demand outstrips what appears to be an artificially limited supply, sellers with no need to liquidate assets will doubtless be happy enough. Buyers not so much maybe, because as of mid-2023 you will need the thick end of £130,000 to get your hands on a high-miler. What you get for that however is a stylish, understated and mellow tourer that will perform very nicely as long as you are okay about setting limits for both yourself and the car. 

The timelessness of its design inside and out and its fine build quality are its strongest attributes when you’re talking about future values. When we say fine build quality we’re talking about the outer structure of the car. The ‘handbuilt’ schtick can be a double-edged sword in other areas. There seems to be a fairly long list of insignificant-looking but annoying and sometimes expensive issues associated with the Z8. You’d like to hope that the previous doting owner will have put these issues right on the one you decide to buy. 

The most affordable Z8 in PH Classifieds at the time of writing was this ’01 example in silver with 41,000 miles at £159,850. Here’s one of two non-silver cars for sale on PH, a black 23,000-mile ‘UK car’ at a fiver under £200k (pictured). It’s being sold by Hexagon in London who have a long history buying and selling Z8s. For the ulitmate low-mileage experience you’ll need 392,500 euros to buy this 996km specimen in Titanium. There were no Alpina Roadster V8s for sale in the UK as we went to press, not entirely surprising given that fewer than ten of them came here in the first place.