From BMW’s Department of Redundancy Department comes the M850i Edition M Heritage, an M-Lite version of a car paying tribute to a non-M version of a car that was available with a VIN starting in WBS. I mean, given its architectural link with the 5 Series and 7 Series, the M850i Gran Coupe is a four-door version of a two-door version of a four-door car, after all. Anyway, this special edition comes as standard with paint and some wheels, but none of that’s really important. What matters is that BMW decided to position it directly next to an original 8 Series, then bring a photographer. Frankly, I’m surprised someone at corporate didn’t veto that decision.
Alright, I’ll expand on the new one first. The M850i Gran Coupe is a car driven by…actually, I’ve never seen anyone driving an M850i Gran Coupe. Old guy who looks like he golfs in an M850i Cabriolet? Sure. Power broker in an M8? Absolutely. But this particular variant? Can’t say I know. Perhaps that’s why BMW has decided to paint 500 of them in the launch colors of the original 8 Series: Bright Red, Mauritius Blue metallic, Cosmos Black metallic, Oxford Green metallic, and Daytona Violet metallic. It’s then clothed big swathes of interior in Alcantara, added some unique wheels, piled on the equipment, and given it some badging and small accents. Pricing starts at $131,575 and you’d have to taste exterior glass on a regular basis to splash that much cash on one.
While I adored the 6 Series Gran Coupe, I never found myself enthralled by the 8 Series Gran Coupe in non-Alpina trim, for reasons that become immediately apparent in this photo set. While the M850i Gran Coupe is a luxury car you can spend money on, the original 8 Series was a flagship. A benchmark. One of those cars so special, its makers might not be able to replicate it again. Given that it cost roughly $900 million to develop, most automakers wouldn’t want to anyway. That’s a shame, because everything wrong about the M850i gets clarified in the context of the E31 8 Series.
For one, there’s appearance. The modern car is a product of its era, one that already feels quite 2020. It’s bulbous and busy and derivative of the rest of the lineup around that time. The E31 is something different entirely. It looked nothing like any other BMW of the late ’80s, its pop-up headlights and pillarless greenhouse standing out. At the same time, it’s restrained, muscular where muscle’s needed and sleek where it isn’t, all without being overbearing.
Then there’s the meaning of the name. An 8 Series should be something above a 7 Series, not something less spectacular, less cutting-edge, less extravagant. The 6 Series nameplate exists for that, and that’s what the M850i Gran Coupe really should be. The original 8 Series was the first production car to feature CANBUS networking (not the W140 S Class as commonly thought), featured the first pairing of a V12 engine and a six-speed manual transmission, and was the second car ever to get Germany’s first postwar V12 engine. It was also one of the first BMWs to get a modern multi-link rear suspension, and had a drag coefficient of just 0.29 in the late ’80s. The E31 8 Series was a magnificent festival of things that go, and by contrast, the M850i seems almost quaint. A twin-turbocharged V8 mated to an eight-speed automatic isn’t something most would bat an eye at in today’s car market.
The original BMW 8 Series comes from a time when so many manufacturers made cars we absolutely loved, BMW included. A time when it was normal to know a bit about how a car worked, and when innovation was wholeheartedly creating better products to drive. Adaptive dampers and sequential fuel injection, not over-the-air subscriptions and app integration. Could BMW be more like that again? Possibly, but the brand’s been so mired in irreverence for heritage lately, from playing a game with font sizes on the badge for the M235 Gran Coupe to the entire XM SUV. Pity, because everyone loved the cars BMW made around the turn of the ’90s, from the driving-first E30 and E36 3 Series to the crisp E34 5 Series to the C-suite sports sedan E32 7 Series. Cars from a time when BMW was cool because it was authentic.
(Top graphic image: BMW)
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As the owner of an E46 M3, E53 x5 4.4, and a F02 740Ld none of the current BMWs have any appeal, I drove a brand new X5 for a week in Nevada and it was totally fine was sterile compared with a 20 year old E53 X5. When I got back home and drove the E53 I could see how hard the engineers worked on that model as they had a lot to prove to make it behave like an BMW, something the current cars lack.
Meh whatever. The only thing I find odd here is basing the tribute car on the 4dr coupe rather than the 2dr coupe. That seems a bit dumb. I don’t have much interest in the old 8-series or the new one – too much muchness like most high end cars. My tastes are rather more modest, I find BMWs at their best at their simplest. I think my new M235i proved that to me beyond a doubt. Not my cup of tea, and I moved it on after less than two years.
I certainly used to love BMW, to the point I bought two of them new. But they are very dead to me at this point. Not a single car I would buy in their entire current lineup, though the stick shift Z4 is close. Can’t stand the interior though, and if I can’t pick it up in Munich I can’t be bothered to buy new.
While I’m a life long BMW motorcycle enthusiast, I lost interest in the cars somewhere around the E46. FWIW the only BMW car my immediate family owned was a 2000 sedan in the 70s, although my boomer cousin is a,rabid BMW car enthusiast and has owned around a dozen from a 2002 all the way through to his current 2 Series with a brief detour into VAG. Then again I drive a pickup, but it is a bright red 2+2 with a V8
Sat in an E31 the ATL car show back then… it was UNLOCKED. Absolutely beautiful.
The e31 is one of my dream cars, where it shall forever stay because I’m not crazy enough to actually buy and try to maintain a 30 year old German v12 flagship.
My general impression of all the modern BMWs is the star high school athlete who doesn’t realize how much they’ve let themselves go in the two decades since graduation – they’re pretty sure they’re still a top athlete, and sure, there’s still muscle under all that flab, but nothing’s moving quite as gracefully as it used to be, and if you get a chance to compare it to the original, it’s pretty glaring what’s been lost.
i think a better anology is when older bodybuilders age out of competitional bodybuilding and switch to powerlifting …
I’ll put it this way, I could easily afford to purchase a newer BMW, I choose to daily drive an e36 M3 because it’s one of my all time favorite BMWs. The e36 styling is phenomenal and the raw nature of how it drives is much more exciting than most anything that came after it. I considered an e46 M3 but it felt very refined in comparison and the soap bar styling wasn’t as good as the boxy 90s.
I have also owned an e39 M5, it was an absolutely brilliant car. Gorgeous interior, very nice exterior and a drive train that had tremendous character. My parents are in their third e38 740, there is a reason they continue to drive them, they are stunning to look at and drive beautifully.
I hear ya. I just bought a low-mileage e46 vert to replace my current high mileage e46 vert. Figured I’d kick the new car can down the road another decade and see if anyone’s gotten their shit together by then, because nothing in the current landscape shy of 300 large has half the charm or fun of mine.
Pretty much emphasizing why we are right
BMW’s version of:
If you build it, they will come.
That’s a fairly nice 2nd gen Kia Stinger.
Why is it parked next to an 8 Series?
Related: The rear sure says Elantra to me.
Why they did this with with the 4 door boggles the mind. The M850 coupe would have been a better choice. Guess it tells you BMW’s more interested in making family cars.
Every time I hear the words “gran coupe” I want to throw a brick at something. “Oh, we split the 2 series and 4 series off the 1 & 3 because the 1 & 3 are gonna be sedans and the 2 & 4 are gonna be the sporty coupes. By the way, can I interest you in a 4 door 2 series?”
Nobody’s saying no to anything in Munich anymore, apparently.
Recently I read a couple reviews in C/D lamenting how BMW had turned away from enthusiasts to sell cars to people who bought them for “the wrong reasons.”
That’s from their review of the 1987 325is.
That’s from their review of the 1988 325iX.
I see it the other way. BMW used to make nice cars with a bit of a performance bent, with a few halo cars to give everything else cred. Now that nearly everything is an ‘M-sport’ or ‘M number salad’, whatever happened to the classy, luxury-oriented Bimmer? I think BMWs look better with chrome myself.