The BMW Speedtop Is A Stunning 616bhp Shooting Brake You’ll Be Able To Buy*

BMW design of late has taken a bit of a kicking from the world’s press. And not unfairly, we’d venture. It’s nice to be reminded, then, that the company is still capable of making something absolutely jaw-droppingly beautiful when it wants to. Meet the BMW Speedtop, a V8-powered shooting brake that’s actually going into production. Just about.

It’s making its debut as a concept this weekend at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este, which is Italian for ‘Let’s Argue About Who Has The Finest Hand-Crafted Leather Boat Shoes While Sipping An Insanely Expensive Wine On The Shores Of Lake Como’. If it looks a bit familiar, that’s because it’s essentially a coupe version of the Skytop targa concept we saw at the same event last year.

Except it’s not a coupe, it’s a shooting brake, perhaps one of the coolest body styles out there, for reasons we can’t really explain. And listen up, Mercedes and Genesis: this is a proper shooting brake with the correct number of doors, not the slightly lower-slung five-door estates you insist on shoehorning the name onto.

It’s been painted in an excellent shade that BMW studiously avoids calling ‘brown’, instead going with ‘Floating Sunstone Maroon’. Call it what it is, guys. We’re fine with it. It gets the same sharknose front, slender lights and central ‘spine’ accent line running along its length as its drop-top sibling.

The inside, meanwhile, is finished in a combo of ‘Sundown Maroon’ and ‘Moonstone White’, with a slender beam of light running along the roof, echoing the spine on the outside. The seats have been trimmed in some of the finest leather from Italian company Schedoni – they’ve long been producing model-specific fitted luggage for Ferrari, and the Speedtop gets some too.

No mechanical specifics as of yet, just that the Speedtop is fitted with “the most powerful V8 engine currently offered by BMW.” That’ll be the 616bhp, 4.4-litre twin-turbo unit from the M8 Competition, then. In fact, BMW hasn’t said as much, but we suspect that under that gorgeous body, this basically is an M8.

BMW, of course, has form with the shooting brake. It took the strange but brilliant decision to give the coupe version of the Z3 a hatchback, then revisited that concept with the Concept Touring Coupe at Villa d’Este in 2023.

It ummed and ahhed about putting the latter into limited production, but ultimately decided against it. Boo and hiss, etc. It’s better news this time round, though – like the Skytop, BMW’s actually going to build and sell a few Speedtops. 70 to be precise, available to order now. Better form an orderly queue, rich people.