BMW Z9 Gran Turismo Concept #Blogpost

My quest in discovering obscure BMW concepts continues! And today is a good one indeed!
CTzens of CarThrottle, I present to you the BMW Z9 Concept…

Conception

The Z9 was concieved by Chris Bangle who was chief designer at BMW for quite some time. The car was to show an evolution in the design language of models to come. It was first revealed at the 1999 Frankfurt motorshow to a positive reaction from the public and the following year at the Paris Auto show a convertible variant was shown. Now you may have now realised that the Z9 has an uncanny resemblance to the gorgeous E63 6 Series (2003-10), this is because the E63 incorporated many of the design cues from the Z9 (i.e. the long bonnet and short rear deck.) The rims on the Z9 were also carried over to the E63 6 Series, albeit only for the 645Ci model (2003-2005).

Quirks, Features and Performance (QFP)

The Z9 has a lot of features not normally found on production BMW’s of the time, the gullwing doors were by far the most lavish quirk of the concept but it also featured the intuitive interaction concept which was thought to be the ancestor of the current iDrive system found in their cars today. The engine was also a revoulutionary module, it was a 3.9L V8 Turbo Diesel not designed for truck use and was the first of its kind. This unit would then feature in the later model year E38 7 Series in the shape of the 740d. It was certainly no slouch when it came to performance, putting out 245Hp and 413lbft, thus enabling it to reach a rather impressive top speed of 156mph. The Z9 was constructed using an aluminium space frame with a Carbon fibre skin on top, the Z9 benefitted from this by gaining better handling dynamics.

Fate

The Z9 was a popular concept indeed, however it was never put into production because BMW did not feel as if it was the right time to introduce a top line sports car, however the innovations it provided were preserved and went into future models. This included the direct descendant of the Z9, the E63 6 Series in 2003 which as stated before took many styling cues from the aforementioned concept. It also showed the world that diesel engines could be exciting and not just restricted for HGV/LGV use.

Conclusion

To conclude, the Z9 was all about the innovation it provided, but it also gave the world an insight of what design cue they could expect in the years to come and the technology it provided is still being used today! The Z9 was one of the first concepts to be “Vorsprung durch Technik” as Audi would put it…

Anyway, this brings me to the end of the post.
Thanks for reading!

Pokecraft The Car Catcher
Lover of Anime and Cars alike