BMW's opening salvo of reintroduced 8 Series models shows us the 850i Coupe. The old 8 was cool but a bit of a failure for the brand, how does this new model stack up?
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*Filmed on a closed road*
It's difficult to think of a BMW which has been a swing and a miss, but like a rock band's 8th album which doesn't connect with audiences, we have a few concerns about the new 8 Series.
Sure, it's extremely, unsettlingly fast. Thanks to the 4.4-litre twin-turbo lifted from the current M5, the M850i blitzes to 100 kph in 3.7 seconds, and to be honest it feels quite a lot faster. The way it pulls from 100km/h to 200 is also just ballistic.
But with permanent all-wheel-drive, enormous rear tyres and a relatively insulated cabin, the experience is not as visceral as you might hope. But perhaps that will be the job of the M8?
Join Ciro De Siena on a closed road outside Cape Town where he has the tough job of trying to work out what exactly this 8 Series is; is it a sportscar, a GT or both?
