Published at CarReview.com
By Kurt Gensheimer
Blings:
- Most attractive modern BMW roadster design yet
- Exhilarating, more powerful twin-turbo inline 6
- Lightning-fast shifts from the 7-speed dual clutch tranny
- Retractable hard top delivers best of both motoring worlds
Dings:
- Too much technology for the inherent simplicity of a roadster
- Too much weight for the inherent svelteness of a roadster
- For the price of one Z4, you can buy both a hard and soft top Miata
Ruling: Not quite the ultimate driving machine, but most definitely the ultimate luxury and technology machine which strays from the traditional characteristics of a roadster.
Wind in your hair, bugs in your teeth, a sore back, ears that ring for days, the fiercest case of sunburn you’ve ever had, a heater with less ferocity than an asthmatic 90-year-old; these are the experiences most people associate with 2-seat roadsters. And despite what some of these may seem as uncomfortable, that’s exactly what the experience in a classic roadster is supposed to be; uncomfortable but real as a heart attack.
Think Austin-Healey, MG, Datsun 1600 and the Porsche Speedster; these are cars which helped define the uncomfortable-yet-endearing persona the 2-seat roadster. Mazda understood this concept and in 1990 released the Miata, which went on to sell more than 850,000 units, the highest-selling 2-seat roadster in history. Why was it so wildly popular? Because Mazda took the visceral road feel, light weight and deft handling of a classic 4-cylinder roadster and modernized it with more safety features, accouterments and a heater with the ferocity of an asthmatic 60-year-old.
Now of course the Bavarians could not take the success of Mazda without developing a roadster of their own guise. After all, BMW was one of the early pioneers of the roadster, putting their blue and white propeller badge on one of the most beautiful roadsters ever designed; the 507. The same car which inspired the über-roadster Z8 and the model we’re discussing today, the Z4.
Design
Since it’s introduction in 1996 as BMW’s first modern roadster, the Z3 took Mazda’s formula of mixing visceral road feel with modern amenities and upscaled it with German luxury, engineering and the addition of a 6-cylinder engine – a step Mazda still has never taken. The car was reasonably attractive and sporting, and sold well. But when the Z4 was introduced in late 2002, many enthusiasts rubbed their eyes with double, triple and quadruple takes while gasping in horror. To put it as nicely as possible, the Z4 did not inherit the awe-striking beauty of it’s forebear, the 507.
What a difference a redesign makes.
In its first year, the second generation Z4 already garnered the praise and respect of automotive designers around the world. Automobile Magazine awarded the Z4 2009 “Design of the Year Award” as well as earning the coveted “Red Dot Design Award”. But you don’t need trophies and accolades to know that the new Z4 is a gorgeous car; you can see that with your own two eyes, assuming they function properly.
And you can thank the two…ahem…women team for designing an interior and exterior which exudes luxury, sophistication, sportiness and above all, the visceral beauty of a roadster much like the 507. Women really do know what men like; not that women won’t buy the Z4. Quite the contrary. They’re probably more likely than ever to now buy it because it no longer resembles a horribly deformed shark dressed in sheet metal.
Of course, the big news with the new Z4 is the retractable hardtop – a feature which suddenly tips the traditional notion of a 2-seat roadster on its proverbial lid. Yes, with the Z4 you can now have both the freeway serenity of a coupe coupled with the raging windstorm of a open top roadster, and you can have it in only 20 seconds – the paltry time it takes for the near silent top to retract into the trunk.
With the new Z4, the complete impracticality of a 2-seat roadster becomes ever-so slightly less impractical. Even with the top in the trunk, you can still get 6 cubic feet of storage space. Hey, it’s better than zero. And despite the maximum capacity of 11 cubic feet with top up, it’s clear BMW is trying really hard to make the Z4 appear as practical as possible, as evidenced by the ‘pass-through’ door from the trunk so one can fit golf clubs and…skis? Really? What kind of skis would these be? Skis for dwarfs?
Interior
Another classic roadster characteristic which is altered with the Z4 is experienced inside the cabin. In a car which used to be considered extravagant if it had anything more than a horn and an asthmatic heater, the Z4 delivers brain-seizing technology while coddling you in German luxury with a heater blowing more hot air than your favorite elected official.
Although there are numerous features to talk about, including BMW’s infamous iDrive control system – in that it controls you and not the other way around, making us think it should be called iDontDrive – perhaps the slickest technological integration is with Apple’s iPhone. The phone neatly drops into a cradle in the center console and can control everything on your phone from the iDrive system with a clean 9-inch pop-up navigation window on the dashboard. So if you’re into iDrive, iPhones, or any other heavily marketed techno-dork device with a lower case “i” in front of it, it’s one more reason to consider the Z4.
But like many automakers who get all caught up in techno-dorkiness, they get distracted from delivering on the simple stuff – like designing a stereo interface that doesn’t completely disappear from vision the second you put on your polarized sunglasses. I bet I can still see the radio dials on my buddy’s Datsun 1600 Roadster.
Although it’s pretty clear this author prefers simplicity, technological innovations in the Z4 have provided improvements over the last generation. The retractable hardtop offers 40 percent more visibility, as well as two extra inches of headroom, opening up the target market to those with short legs and long torsos.
Performance
So up to this point we’ve been talking about stuff which usually doesn’t pertain to roadsters. So let’s get to the business – how does it drive? In a word: adequately. Not great, not terrible, but right there somewhere in the middle.
What’s under the hood? Well, from looking at the badges on the front fender, you’d be led to believe it’s a 3.5 liter engine with something really cool and techno-dorky called sDrive, but you’d be waaay off. Befuddling for sure, but the Z4 35is is powered by a 3.0 liter twin-turbo inline six cylinder, and the sDrive? Don’t ask. We don’t know for sure, but our sources tell us it means ‘rear-wheel-drive’. Wow. What an innovation for a roadster. Mind blowing.
The Z4 is available in a 6-speed manual, 6 speed automatic, or the 7-speed dual clutch manumatic which can be found in the M3. Our tester was equipped with the 7-speed, and although this author is a bigger fan of manuals, the instantaneous shift speed and gurgle the engine made when blasting through gears improved its stock considerably, allowing us to hit 60 from 0 in a shade under 5 seconds. Of course, the 335 horsepower and 332 lb-ft of torque available at a grunty 1500 rpms from the direct-injection, twin-turbo inline-6 made the sprint possible.
And for that extra ‘push off the cliff’ as Nigel Tufnel would say, a new, temporary overboost function briefly increases torque under full acceleration to 369 lb-ft. Quite an obscene amount of power for a roadster.
Although we loved the speed of the dual clutch, in classic BMW form, the company has to complicate matters which don’t require complication. The console shifter for the dual clutch transmission commands a minute to figure out how to shift from park to drive to neutral and back. It’s by no means a brain-twister, but really, what’s wrong with P R N D and a setting for manual? After wrestling with iDrive, my mind needs a break.
In a straight line, on the freeway and on reasonable backcountry roads, the Z4 is a delight. It perfectly blends the serenity of highway driving in a luxury hardtop coupe with the open top fun of a weekend roadster while still managing passable fuel economy number of 18 city and 25 freeway. So from an everyday driver perspective, the Z4 is a must drive.
But push the Z4 hard into corners like a classic roadster should be pushed, and weaknesses emerge. First off, like most modern German cars, the Z4 is a heffer to the tune of 3500 pounds; an egregious amount of weight for a so-called roadster. Then, consider that the additional 350 pounds of weight from the hardtop sits high on a car that’s designed with an exceptionally long hood, a short rear and a cabin which puts occupant weight too far back on the chassis, it adds up to a roadster which prefers the daily commute more than a spirited jaunt at the local track. These handling characteristics are validated through the Z4’s unimpressive .83 g skidpad results. Not bad in general, but for a roadster – not good.
Our tester was equipped with BMW’s M suspension system; an adaptive, electronically controlled (surprise, surprise!) suspension which can toggle between normal (freeway), sport (spirited driving) and sport+ (all-out hooliganism). The different settings absolutely have an effect on the behavior of the car, ranging from a soft, rolly freeway ride to a stiff, rigid, sans traction-control, tire scorching experience.
Value
We would be remiss to say the Z4 is a good value. The base price is $52,500, and as tested, nearly $63,000. For the same price, you could buy both his and hers Miatas – one hard top and one soft top. This reality would make many stop and reconsider, especially “with the economy the way it is and all…”, but there are some out there who wouldn’t be caught dead in a Miata. They want more than just impracticality, they want luxurious impracticality. They want their iPhone to have a cool place to sit. They want to have a statistically higher chance of copulating with opposite sex. So for them, the Z4 is a bargain.
Who Should Buy It?
The Z4 is really targeted towards buyers who want something a little less sporty yet more luxurious than a Porsche Boxster. For these buyers who are less enthusiast oriented, the Z4 will deliver plenty of driver exhilaration. In addition, for someone who is losing sleep over whether to get a Boxster or a Cayman, they should check out the Z4. Because chances are likely they’re less concerned with the inherent handling differences than they are with the material and removability of the top.
Conclusion
The Z4 clearly strays from the roots of what a 2-seat roadster is all about. It’s bigger and heavier in both weight and technology, and possesses more luxury than some luxury sedans. But depending on who you are, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some would never consider the Z4 because of it’s extravagance, while others have been waiting a lifetime for a roadster as practical (relatively speaking) as the Z4. Although this author would buy two Miatas well before a single Z4, this author also happily drives a 25-year-old Toyota 4Runner with no air conditioning, and is happily married, indicating an absolute zero chance of copulating with the opposite sex. So take that for what its worth.
What’s undeniable is that BMW has taken the Z4 from hard on the eyes to one of the most beautiful cars on the road, and paired it with a legendary drivetrain, German luxury and technology which brings the roadster into the modern era. In the parlance of our internet times – a roadster 2.0.
