WHY THE ORIGINAL M8 GOT IT WRONG
Back in the 1980s, BMW’S take on the phrase ‘luxury flagship’ translated into a super-sleek coupé with a V12 engine and pop-up headlights. First revealed at the 1989 Frankfurt motor show, the original E31 8 Series had all the makings of a supercar.
Underneath its wedgeshaped body was a technical set-up fit for a 21st century car, with five-link rear suspension and a long list of electronic systems, including traction control and stability control, variable power steering and, from 1990, electronic damper control.
Even the base 840Ci came with a V8 making a then respectable 282bhp. But the majority of sales were for the V12, the most potent of which had 365bhp. It eventually formed the basis for the unit used by the Mclaren F1.
The 8 Series should have been a sales success, but BMW sold just 31,000 units in 10 years on sale. This was partly down to timing — the launch came during a period of economic downturn through the late 1980s and early 1990s — but also due to the fact that it never really captured the imagination of drivers.
BMW offered the car with a six-speed manual gearbox, but more than 25,000 were ordered with a sluggish fourspeed auto. Running costs were also monumentally high, and the model was notoriously unreliable.
Such were the car’s issues that BMW canned an attempt to develop an M8 performance version early on. Only a one-off M8 prototype was ever produced, fitted with the 600bhp naturally aspirated 6.0-litre V12 engine from the Mclaren F1 supercar. Imagine what could have been.