The BMW M8 that never was produced.
 

Very cool read if your familiar or interested in BMW's

http://www.autocar.co.uk/blogs/autoc...es-cabrio.aspx

http://www.autocar.co.uk/csfiles/blo...dential/M8.JPG
http://www.autocar.co.uk/csfiles/blo...ial/engine.JPG
http://www.autocar.co.uk/csfiles/blo...tial/wheel.JPG


"I spent last Thursday and Friday at BMW in Munich enjoying an intense technical briefing on the upcoming Mega City Vehicle. The two days of frantic note taking were punctuated by a dinner in the BMW museum.

Before we started scoffing we were given a presentation by BMW design boss Adrian Van Hooydonk.

Even though Von Hooydonk doled out some pretty significant revelations about BMW’s future thinking, his audience was pretty distracted by a 20 year-old car sitting just a few feet away.

Even though the night belonged to the environmentally friendly MCV, BMW had decided to push out the fire-breathing M8 prototype, which had never been seen before in public.



I’m a huge fan of the 8-series (I spent a couple of enjoyable weekends in them in the mid-1990s) and can well remember the magazine rumours about the M8 back in 1990.

However the M8 never saw the showroom, scrapped in the wake of the early 1990’s recession, which coincided with the first real environmental backlash. Back then a V12 and 550bhp was seen as the height of social unacceptability.

In the flesh, the M8 wasn’t a disappointment. The body was extensively modified (who couldn’t love the rear wing vents?) and seemed, under the paint, to have made extensive use of carbon-fibre. It also had very trick wheels with aluminium rims and carbon-fibre spiders.


The interior was trimmed entirely in black suede and sported hard-core race seats. Interestingly, this sole prototype had two different doors: one with a conventional window and one with a fixed window and retractable insert.

Under the bonnet was an extraordinary six-litre V12. Festooned with carbon-fibre, the unit was developed from the 5.6-litre engine used by the rare 850CSi.



Although BMW’s engineers may have learnt much from building this experimental engine, when it came to supplying the unit for the McLaren F1, they started from scratch. Even so, the M8’s motor is genuinely related to the McLaren engine.

Interestingly, while we gazing under the bonnet Peter Ratz, the head engineer for the MCV project, whipped out his iphone and calculated that today BMW could extract the same power from a 2.8-litre straight six with twin turbochargers."

Re: The BMW M8 that never was produced.
 

sick

Re: The BMW M8 that never was produced.
 

:rolleyes:
And how long would that last and how many people would be having heat issues on track days or dealing with having to idle the car for a bit before shutting down? If they could have done it, then they should have done it with the 335.

Re: The BMW M8 that never was produced.
 

Absolutely sick... and it still looks fresh, 20 years later.

Re: The BMW M8 that never was produced.
 

Probably because it hasnt seen the the light of day (or artifical light for that matter) in twenty years. Best looking BMW ive seen in a looooong time.

Re: The BMW M8 that never was produced.
 

I'm refering to the design. It doesn't look dated, even though it's 20 years old.

Re: The BMW M8 that never was produced.
 

Eh, it looks exactly like it is from the time period it was from to me.

Re: The BMW M8 that never was produced.
 

Why make the 335 compete with the M3 for hp?

Re: The BMW M8 that never was produced.
 

so was this car ridiculously ahead of its time back then?

Re: The BMW M8 that never was produced.
 

In a word.... yes.

500+ hp, carbon fiber body, carbon fiber wheels, and prolly a whole slew of goodies BMW did not mention.