BMW Prescribes Roadster Therapy
There are sports cars and there are roadsters and ne’er the twain should collide.
Corvette, Ferrari, Porsche and Viper are sports cars--magnum two-seaters ready to be slung around racetracks the moment they’re unwrapped and have air in the tires. Cornered in commuter traffic, they will lower, stomp, fidget; handling such rogue elephants can be a scary ordeal.
Mazda’s Miata, old T-Series MGs, Alfa-Romeos, new SLs from Mercedes-Benz and the incoming SLK and Porsche Boxster are roadsters--more genteel performers stirring life forces by sun and wind while delivering up our grins, twitching noses and allergies to God’s softer elements.
These are entertaining cars, implying by noise and nimbleness more urge than actually delivered.
By any definition, BMW’s 1996 Z3 is a roadster.
Soft top. Two seats. A slight sacrifice of quiet and comfort with an expected loss of practicality, particularly when carrying stuff not inherent to the experience. Also a relatively low-performance package, a joy rider arousing fun instead of fear.
The price leaves nothing to be afraid of: $28,750.
And that buys a fresh, stylish, shrewdly reasoned car of surprisingly few compromises and shortcomings. This is no hasty adaptation of existing wheels, but a purpose-built Bimmer where everything fits tight and quality is a given. Also a nipper aimed squarely at settled souls who know, or are willing to learn, that two-seaters are high therapy from life’s imbalances, emotional dross and other colitis-causing jimjams.
Above all, its customer pool probably is the broadest of any roadster to date. The Z3 offers a five-speed manual for tactile types, but a four-speed automatic for the less fidgety. Power is from a 138-horsepower four-banger--a mildly uprated version of the engine in BMW’s 318 series--which will take the adventuresome north of 100 mph, but will not terrify the timid with motorcycle noises and rushes of raw speed.
There’s a manual soft top for those who raise roofs only when pneumonia appears imminent. But power tops, hard tops, even a speedster kit with flared headrests for regions where annual rainfall is a one-day affair, are on their way.
Those in search of added personality may add a luggage rack with matching luggage. Other options include leather seats, wood trim from center console to steering wheel, fluffier alloy wheels, metallic paint (including James Bond’s Olympic Atlanta Blue) and a wind deflector so cockpit vortices do not put whitecaps on your latte.
And for anyone snagged on the domestic / import fence and worrying what Ross Perot might think, the Z3 is built at BMW’s new plant in Spartanburg, S.C. As it stands now, there are no plans to make moonshine in Heidelberg.
Comparisons with Mazda’s Miata are unavoidable. Also a longer reach than Hiroshima from Spartanburg. The spiritual seduction of open-top motoring may be the same. But Miata costs much less, dances too readily, is smaller, lighter, slower and doesn’t slap itself to the road with the substance of the Z3.
Waiting for the Z3 has been a longer tease than searching horizons for the Titanic. But with building a roadster clearly an exercise in futurism, rather than a response to an existing market, BMW desperately needed to orchestrate awareness and wants long before producing the car.
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Hence, eight months ahead of production, a Z3 replaced 007’s Aston Martin DB5 in “GoldenEye” and gave Pierce Brosnan a run for his looks. Then Z3s instead of Hummers in Neiman Marcus’ Christmas book for those who have everything except the barely obtainable.
The upside: 100 catalog cars sold within hours, and the cancellation list stretched to a thousand names. BMW will build 35,000 Z3s this year, 40% will be allocated to the United States, and although the car does not go on sale until later this month, this year’s production has already been sold out.
The downside: BMW is naive if it thinks dealers and private gougers will not be selling Z3s at hefty premiums.
Aesthetically, the car is sculptured well enough to be a centerpiece for a very large dining room.
The front is broad and low, its kidney grille a trademark beloved from 60 years ago. Lights are doe-eyed with lines clipping the tops of lenses to suggest some mood between serious and frowning. Head on, the front slopes down and spreads, and keeps eyes moving in a sensuous sweep.
BMW has preferred to seat passenger and driver as far to the rear as possible and so the back end is a little dumpy. Almost, dare we say it, Miata-like.
Whatever is lost at the rear, however, is regained by a striking silhouette that is playful, made responsible by fender louvers, gills really, that are a touch of heritage borrowed from the BMW 507.
The interior, roomy enough for 6-footers and beyond, has been styled with thoroughness and efficiency. Unfortunately, from instruments to switch gear to heater controls, the attachments are old, overexposed and from elderly parts bins. Nor, with seats racked to the rear and top down, is there room for even one tennis racket back there. Trunk space is a closet drawer.
Venetian blinds are tougher to work than the Z3’s canvas top. Unlatching is a snap, as it were. Then the lid rolls back by gravitational momentum to stuff itself behind the seats with a meaty thwack. There’s a flexible tonneau cover calling for no manual strength and zero digital dexterity.
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We have established that the Z3 is not a quick car. Steering is agile and tires track wherever set. Eleven-inch discs with ABS are almost double rations for a car weighing less than 1.5 tons. The chassis is rigid; the ride, crisp; and responses to mishandling and overcooking are quite gentle.
But most sport coupes, and certainly any BMW 325i, will have the Z3’s lunch and most of its supper when roads get lonely and interesting. Fourth gear is too short; fifth, too far away in the ratios; and there isn’t enough low-end torque to get arrogant with anyone. Especially when it is one car per green, per lane, and there’s a Mustang GT rumbling alongside.
Nor did we like an exhaust that sounds like a Taurus with half a muffler. Buzzy. Unemotional.
Still, Ferrari noise and Porsche speed are not the designed purposes of the Z3. Peace and good manners and combining history with myth in search of perpetual youth are its reasons for being.
So what if wind is slapping one ear to deafness. We do not care that feet are in a volcano while heads and shoulders are in Antarctica. Piloting a roadster creates space and mood to recall lost loves, dark drives back to college, misty phrases from Longfellow and warm grass from when there were meadows back of homes where we were born.
If you want more power, there are rumors that BMW’s super six-cylinder has been measured for the Z3’s engine room. It would almost certainly be reworked by BMW’s motor-sports magicians.
Then this roadster becomes a sports car.
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1996 BMW Z3
Cost
* Base price: $28,750 (Includes two air bags, cruise control, manual transmission, disc brakes with antilock system, limited slip differential, air conditioning, sound system, 16-inch alloy wheels, fog lights, power seats, mirrors and windows.)
* As tested: $31,175 (Adds metallic paint, leather upholstery, heated seats, on-board computer.)
Engine
* 1.9-liter, 16-valve, inline-four developing 138 horsepower.
Type
* Front-engine, rear-drive, two-person roadster.
Performance
* 0-60 mph, as tested, 9.4 seconds, with manual.
* Top speed, electronically limited, 116 mph.
* Fuel consumption, estimated city and highway, 23 and 31 mpg.
Curb Weight
* 2,690 pounds.
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1996 BMW Z3
The Good: A roadster reminding us of fun we’ve been missing. Most affordable. Better looking, more enticing than a first love. All BMW throughness, quality and careful assembly.
The Bad: No room behind the seats. Uninspired interior.
The Ugly: Sold-out signs already posted.
