A lot of people aren’t fond of how BMWs have been looking lately. Indeed, the kidney grilles are large enough to swallow babies, and how do you even explain the XM to someone? Well, if you’re not a fan of BMW’s current designs there is a shop in Germany that can give you something different. Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik is a coachbuilding firm and if you buy a current generation BMW Z4, it’ll come out of the other end of the shop as the Tender 5.7, a new BMW designed to look like the BMW 507 that Elvis owned. Look, I’m sorry for your headache, but you should pop some Tylenol before continuing.
Every day of every week, I’m always online searching for some sort of car to buy or at the very least, look at. While there are cool cars to be found on Facebook, Craigslist, and Hemmings, you’ll find some forbidden fruit on a site like Classic Driver. Usually, I’ll find some obscure German microcar there but today, well, I’m not sure what I found. If you’re one of our European readers, Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik will be happy to sell you this 2021 BMW Z4 M40i for €288,000, or $312,955 at current exchange rates. If you’re an American, you probably can’t have this.
Either way, I’m fairly sure everyone reading this article right now is going to have an opinion of what they’re looking like. I have a feeling you’re either going to love it or hate it and there’s going to be no point in-between.
Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik was founded in Germany in 2016 and has since produced carbon fiber body kits for sports cars and exotics. However, the firm advertises itself as more. Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik says it’s a coachbuilder, tuner, and more. The company claims it could handle the full development of a vehicle, including Finite Element Analysis to designing tooling.
The Tender 5.7 isn’t just a showcase of this company’s skills, but seemingly a love letter to the BMWs of old. Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik is taking just 15 G29 BMW Z4s and is transforming them into cars that look vaguely like old BMW 507s. From Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik:
Ursula Andress, the first Bond girl, fell for its charm, Alain Delon drove one, but Elvis Presley made it immortal. Stars and legends like these did not miss the chance to drive a roadster. Our Tender 5.7 brings back to life the new attitude to life of the 50s and 60s – unconventional and upbeat like the King of Rock’n’Roll. For many years, Elvis Presley’s roadster gathered dust forgotten in a barn near San Francisco until it was rediscovered by chance. This wonderful story inspired us to breathe new life into this timeless and rare beauty in our interpretation.
We from estella-Fahrzeugtechnik GmbH have presented our Roadster Tender 5.7. As a longtime partner of renowned tuners in the automotive industry, we enjoyed bringing our own vision of the Tender to the road. We developed the carbon body in cooperation with ds-Fasertechnik GmbH. The result is a fascinating combination of contemporary lightweight construction and state-of-the-art technology with the elegance and aesthetics of the 1950s.
Real Tender
As Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik notes above, this is a BMW Z4 with a carbon fiber body kit made to resemble a 507. However, Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik doesn’t stop there. The Tender 5.7 is then painted in BMW Classic colors and the interior is decked out full leather in the color of your choice. Additional touches include Tender 5.7 badging, including on the brake calipers, the addition of forged wheels, and a custom leather wind deflector.
It’s also not all show and no go. There’s a Euro-spec BMW B58B30C 3.0-liter straight-six under the hood. In stock form, this would have made 335 HP, but Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik popped open the hood and added a larger turbocharger, a Euro 6 downpipe, and a Bastuck exhaust system. Some tuning later and Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik says this engine is now pumping out 500 HP and 479 lb-ft of torque to the 20-inch forged wheels. A set of coilovers assists the wheels in fitment.
The rest of the car is pretty much a standard Z4 M40i. There’s a Harman Kardon 12-speaker sound system, two 10.25-inch screens, and an eight-speed ZF automatic transmission. Of course, Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik is a coachbuilder, so if you have personal requests, the company will attempt to fill them.
Some of you are squirming right now for sure, but I think you need to know that Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik has already built two of these. The first has already been sold and you’re looking at the second one right now. Barring any custom color choices, Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik says that purple and white are now taken. What remains are 13 more colors for 13 more cars, which include a dark green, a bright red, and a sort of dull yellow.
If you’re one of our American readers, the Tender 5.7 is forbidden fruit, as it’s unlikely Customs will be entertained by a souped-up, Euro-spec BMW. If you’re one of our European readers and you want a modern BMW 507, your price of entry will be €288,000, unless you ask for customizations. At the very least, this is much cheaper than a real BMW 507, which will set you back well over a million dollars.
I’ll just be sitting right here processing everything I’m watching here. I’m not sure if I like it or I don’t, but I’m glad it exists.
Images: Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik
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Mitsuoka, Anyone?
th front splitter fucks up the front and the tail-fin thing fucks up the rear. I guess the middle is fine..
I applaud the goal of combining modern BMW drivetrain technology with the timeless looks of the 507. They failed.
It’s probably done about as well as something like this can be, but as with any carstume the lines of the underlying car are still there and don’t entirely work with the new style.
I’m going to be completely honest, I love it. Not sure about the bright red interior, but I have a massive soft spot for these retro-modern cars. Anything Mitsuoka, Gatsby (though less so), whatever Great Wall is doing with their Cat named cars, I think it’s really neat.
Didn’t BMW make their own 507 tribute with the Z8?
Certainly an improvement on BMW’s current design language.
Oh. Oh, no. Nononono.
If I wanted a weird looking car, I’d buy a Mitsuoka, not this idiotic thing.
Surely, will.i.am was somehow involved in this abomination.
This is a perfect example of why this retro tat rarely works on modern cars. A BMW 507 is an achingly lovely, delicate masterpiece of a thing. The Z4 is a much larger platform to begin with and there are many things about that platform that can’t be changed, so the proportions wind up completely off. The nose is too long and too high. Its haunches, instead of falling elegantly away at the rear of the car, look like it took a trip to Bogota for a discount butt injection. There’s no flow there. The result looks like a Z4 wearing a 507 skin suit, like Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs.
Considering d we hat Beemers look like now this thing is gorgeous. Next step turn into a carbon fiber 2002 tdi
Your lack of Elvis puns has me all shook up.
Definitely going to have a Blue Christmas without them