BMW Z8 ends next year with Alpina
28 December 2002: BMW is dropping its top-end 'Z' car, the Z8, and is producing a special Alpina version of the V8-engined car to mark the occasion.
The Alpina Roadster goes on sale in April, with 450 units going to the US and another 100 elsewhere. The Z8 taught BMW engineers how to make a largely hand-built, small-volume car with an aluminum spaceframe. Those lessons helped BMW develop its own Rolls-Royce, which will be unveiled at the Detroit auto show next month.
A Z8 was sawed in half in the James Bond film 'The World is Not Enough' in 1999, after which sales in the US began. BMW will drop the Z8 at the end of the 2003 model year after only about three years, half the normal life for BMW's volume models. BMW of North America will have sold a total of about 2,500 Z8s, accounting for nearly all sales worldwide.
The Alpina gets a smaller 4.8-litre V-8 and maximum power is 375 hp, compared to 394hp for the regular Z8. It will sell in the US for $137,595, including a lesson at the driving school at the BMW Performance Center in South Carolina.