Sassy, not silly
INTRODUCED at a time (2002) when BMW design chief Chris Bangle was championing what he called “flame surfacing,” the Z4 convertible suffered from terrible inflammation. Hilariously over-styled and seriously weird, the Z4 ragtop trots out more complicated geometry than the GRE math exam -- rays, vectors, bevels, chamfers, contours, concavities and cut lines all skirmish along the fuselage, and the whole is summed in a way that less suggests a fit of inspiration than an overdose of cold medicine.
Too harsh? Try this experiment. The next time you see a Z4 parked on the street, hold up your thumb in a way that blocks that nutty isosceles triangle on the front quarter panel. Better, right? I can only assume Bangle was fresh out of thumbs.
The other damnably curious thing about the Z4 convertible is its lack of visual balance. The Z4 has an extravagantly long hood, but as the eye moves back along the car it seems to shorten up and dwindle, almost as if the modelers were running out of clay. Compared to the blustery prow, the truncated rear quarter and deck seem to belong to another car altogether, perhaps something driven by fat men in fezzes.
The Z4’s styling is well-flogged dead horse, and while I certainly can go on, I won’t. Suffice it to say that the car hasn’t sold up to expectations -- production was scaled back last year at the Spartanburg, S.C., plant where the Z4 is made -- and it’s safe to assume that Bangle’s successor, BMW brand styling maestro Adrian van Hooydonk, will extinguish the flames when it is redesigned for the 2009 model year.
Meantime, we have the new Z4 Coupe, a fixed-roof, fastback riff on the Z4 that is surprisingly attractive, a Venus emerging from a sea of geometric hash. By adding some visually balancing mass to the back of the car, the fastback lid vastly improves the Z4’s looks, while adding 4 more cubic feet of usable cargo space, now up to 12 cubes. At some angles, the car looks a little like a Zagato-bodied Aston Martin from the early 1960s -- no small praise. One commendable detail: Rather than add one more shut line on a car zigzagged with them, the hatch is a form-fitted shell that hides the shut lines in the contours around the windows and below the rear fender bevel. A clean bit of manufacturing, that.
The coupe model is part of a mid-lifespan makeover for the Z4, which includes minor tweaks in interior and exterior styling, revised suspension and various equipment upgrades. The 2006 models offer three new engines: the base engine is a 3.0-liter, 215-hp mill (“3.0i” in BMW nomenclature); a gustier version of the 3.0-liter putting out 255 hp (3.0si); and the smash-mouth M variant with a 3.2-liter, 330-hp motor. The coupe is available only with the 3.0si and M trim. Cog-swapping duties in the Z4 models are handled by either a six-speed manual or a six-speed automatic transmission. BMW’s unfriendly Sequential Manual Gearbox (SMG) is no longer available, even in the M version.
I tested the Z4 3.0si Coupe with the six-speed automatic and, coming a week after I drove the SMG-equipped M6, which might as well be called the Ronco Lurch-o-Matic, the Z4 Coupe drove like an opium dream. As tormented as the SMG is, the auto-six, with button-like shifters on the steering wheel, is that close to transmission heaven. The step-off acceleration is potent, the shift intervals are almost imperceptible and various sport-seeking algorithms keep the transmission in the most aggressive gear for hard driving. These cybernetic-smart slush boxes (the Porsche 911’s is another one) are beginning to make me wonder if the conventional, gated manual transmission has not finally seen its day.
Under the hood of the 3.0si is one of BMW’s composite-alloy engines, an inline six-cylinder with the very latest in scuba equipment on the head: the Double Vanos variable valve timing (and lift on the intake side), three-stage variable intake plenum and electronic throttles. This is a stupendously smooth, free-revving piece of reciprocation, spewing an oily pressurized stream of torque all over the tach. Peak torque (220 pound-feet) arrives at 2,750 rpm and doesn’t start to fade until well north of 6,000 rpm.
From a standing start, the Z4 Coupe nips to 60 mph in less than 6 seconds, yet the more interesting velocities come at mid-throttle. At highway speeds, when you double-click down to a passing gear, the car’s cabin fills with a lusty buzz and the car surges ahead with a gliding aggression. And, by the way, the small, racy three-spoked steering wheel in this car is just about perfection.
It’s been awhile since I’ve been in a Z4 convertible -- I have my image to think of -- so it’s difficult to judge how much of the coupe’s marmoreal solidity is a consequence of the new fixed roof. The car feels unbendable, though. Wind and road noise is muted, wheel vibration and scrub is funneled down to milliamp surges fed conductively through the seat and steering wheel, and the ride is tensed but compliant. This is, after all, a small car, without much attenuating distance between driver and road. So, BMW has deployed a variety of exotic hydraulic mounts, couplings and suspension bushings to fluff up the refinement. Especially notable is the acoustically decoupled hydraulic final drive mount, which is technology I’d associate more with Lexus than the Werks.
This isn’t the first German two-seater to get a hat transplant recently. Porsche screwed a lid on the Boxster and gave us the fantastic Cayman. A comparison is natural. The Cayman is a superb mid-engine sports car, a state of grace on four wheels, but it might be a little too vivid, loud and hard-handed for some tastes. The heavier (3,156 pounds), less powerful Z4 Coupe, especially with the Steptronic gearbox, doesn’t match the performance of the Cayman, but it’s so easy to live with that I’m happy to forgive whatever few tenths of a second it yields on a road course. Should you be so miserly as to fret about cost, the Z4 is 10 grand cheaper than the Cayman.
The Z4 Coupe is easily more car than you can fully indulge in on the street. With the Sport package’s 18-inch, 40-series tires, it grabs asphalt like a Florida congressman (what, too soon?). The steering is accurate to nine decimals, the brakes faultless.
The biggest downside of the fixed roof is the loss of the convertible’s 100 miles of headroom. Even though the top has slight bubble shapes incorporated into the profile, the headroom is pretty tight for me, at 6 foot 1, and the cabin generally is fairly restrictive. Seat rake is limited to about 20 degrees, and fore-and-aft travel runs afoul of the large bulkhead behind the seats. Add the optional deeply socketed Nubuck-leather sport seats, and the Z4 Coupe can feel like wearing your clothes from junior high. This car needs to come with a low-carb cookbook in the glove box.
On another note: A limited-function nav system is optional with the Z4 Coupe. I appreciate that BMW didn’t offer the maddening iDrive controller; however, in its place, this nav system seems to have taken limited function to a whole new level. This is one of the great riddles in automotive technology: that a company as certifiably brilliant as BMW can’t get these kinds of human interfaces right. You know, I have Ford’s number if they need it.
I’m sure I’ll hear from BMW partisans now. Let the flaming, or flame-surfacing, begin.
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BMW Z4 Coupe 3.0si
Base price: $40,795
Price, as tested: $45,545
Powertrain: 3.0-liter, 24-valve, DOHC inline six with variable-valve timing and variable lift on the intake side, three-stage intake, electronic throttles; optional six-speed automatic transmission with manual-shift mode; rear-wheel drive
Horsepower: 255 at 6,600 rpm
Torque: 220 pound-feet at 2,750
Curb weight: 3,156 pounds
0-60 mph: 5.6 seconds
Wheelbase: 98.2 inches
Overall length: 161.1 inches
EPA fuel economy: 21 miles per gallon city, 29 mpg highway
Final thoughts: Topper
