BMW’s quirky i8 still
HALF DESIGN STUDY, HALF PERFORMANCE CAR, THIS CAR IS STILL A FANTASTIC DRIVE FOUR YEARS ON FROM ITS DEBUT. BMW WAS SO HAPPY WITH IT, IT IS ABOUT TO RELEASE AN UPDATED ONE, PLUS A CABRIO VERSION
One model, no extras. That in itself is an unusual statement for a brand such as BMW, which revels in offering its customers all manner of interchangeable options packs.
But then, you probably didn’t buy an i8 in the first place because you wanted to load it up with garnish. You bought it as a statement. Because then and even now, there’s nothing like it on the road.
For a sports car that first surfaced in 2014, the i8 still turns heads. And I’m not talking in a Ferrari-kind of way. This thing looks unlike anything else similarly exotic. It looks like a concept car.
It looks like it should be on a motor show stand, not parked outside JB Hi-Fi.
And that’s even before you stop and get out using those butterfly doors; nice bits of theatre that have little practical reason for being but are at least light enough in their heft to push up or pull down without any real effort.
Getting in and out of the i8 might involve slightly more involuntary grunting though, as a wide sill needs to be negotiated in either direction.
Getting in becomes easier with practice and, thanks to the slippery material covering the sill, you sort of sit down with your legs out of the car, swing them around and in and then just let gravity take its course.
Getting out involved, for me at least, lots of inelegant touching of the tarmac.
Pity, given the upswing of the i8’s doors suggests someone utterly cool is about to alight.
The i8 does remain a cool car, though. No, it isn’t a world-beater in terms of its EV-only range. From a full charge, the six-module 7.1kWh lithium-ion battery drains away to nothing in what seems like minutes. The onboard petrol engine isn’t so much “range extender” as “life blood’’. That’s not to take anything away from what the i8 represents.
If BMW releases — as many of its competitors look set to — a genuine long-range Tesla-rivalling EV soon, I hope it still looks like this.
But the growly three-cylinder engine, enhanced synthetically inside the cabin, is a smileinducing powerplant in its own right.