BMW Z

BMW Z
2021 BMW Z4 M40i
Overview
Production	1989–1992, 2007–2016, 2018–present
Body and chassis
Class	Sports car (S)
Body style	2-door roadster 2-door coupé
Layout	Rear-wheel drive

The BMW Z models are a line of roadsters manufactured by German automaker BMW. The Z stands for Zukunft (German for future),^[1] and has been produced in four different series with six generations consisting of roadster, coupé, sports car, and concept variants.

The introduction of the M Coupé and M Roadster in the Z3 line marked the first of the Z series to have a high-performance BMW M variant. The first generation Z4 also continued to offer M Coupé and M Roadster variants. The current Z4 (G29) uses BMW's (B58B30) inline-six, its platform is the basis for the current Toyota Supra.^[2]

The BMW Z1 is a two-seat roadster developed by BMW and was produced from March 1989 to June 1991. It was based on the E30 3 Series platform.^[3] The Z1 featured unusual doors which, instead of opening outward or upward, dropped into the door sills and had body panels which could easily be removed and replaced; the car could be driven with all its body panels removed for weight reduction and increased performance.^[4] Only 8,000 examples of the Z1 were produced.^[5]

The Z3 was the first modern mass-market roadster produced by BMW.^[6] It was introduced for the 1996 model year shortly after being featured in the James Bond movie GoldenEye. More than 15,000 were sold by the time the car was introduced.^[7] The Z3 underwent a facelift in 1999 with the introduction of a coupé bodystyle and featured revised styling, before the end of its production run in 2002.^[8] The coupé had controversial styling and was nicknamed as "clown shoe".^[9] It was manufactured and assembled in Spartanburg, South Carolina.^[10]

The Z8 was produced from 2000 to 2003 and was the production variant of the 1997 Z07 concept car, which was designed by Danish Henrik Fisker at BMW's DesignworksUSA.^[11] The Z07 originally was designed as a styling exercise to celebrate the 507 roadster of the 1950s, but the overwhelming popularity of the concept spurred BMW's decision to produce a limited production model called the Z8. 5,703 cars were built, approximately half of which were exported to the United States.^[12]

The first-generation BMW Z4 was known as the E85 in roadster form and E86 in coupé form.^[13] It was designed by Danish BMW-designer Anders Warming.^[14]

The Z4's design addressed many criticisms of the preceding Z3; it was larger and featured a significantly stiffer chassis.^[15] The Z4 was initially only available as a roadster, but a coupé version was officially launched in 2006.^[16] The last model was manufactured on 27 August 2008 at the Spartanburg plant.^[17]

The second-generation Z4 was announced on 13 December 2008^[18] and debuted at the 2009 North American International Auto Show in Detroit the following month.^[19] It is the first Z Series model to use a retractable hardtop and meant that there were no longer separate roadster and coupé versions of the car.^[20] The top is made of a two-piece lightweight aluminium shell and takes 20 seconds to operate.^[21] Manufacturing was moved from Spartanburg, United States to Regensburg, Germany.^[22]

The G29 Z4 is the third and current generation Z4 and was unveiled at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance on 23 August 2018.^[23] It reuses the soft-top convertible roof found on the E85 Z4 instead of a retractable hardtop which now takes 10 seconds for operation. The G29 Z4 shares its platform with the J29 Toyota Supra and is manufactured in the same plant in Austria.^[24]

The following are the production and sales figures for Z models, excluding the Z1:^{[25][26][27][28][29]}

Year	Production	EU sales	US sales
1996		-	15,040
1997	57,100[30]	30,954	19,760
1998	53,000[30]	27,776	20,613
1999	51,000[30]	24,268	20,062
2000	42,800[30]	18,681	16,699
2001	39,579[30]	17,358	15,884
2002	26,428[30]	10,749	10,490
2003	52,016[30]	24,224	20,324
2004	38,483[30]	18,593	13,654
2005	28,808[30]	14,137	10,045
2006	30,981[30]	15,844	12,284
2007	28,383[30]	15,281	10,097
2008	18,006[30]	6,116	5,879
2009	22,761[30]	13,497	3,523
2010	24,575	13,153	3,804
2011	18,809	9,417	3,479
2012	15,249	7,508	2,751
2013	12,866[31]	5,970	2,480
2014	10,802	5,373	2,151
2015	7,950	4,093	1,829
2016	5,432	3,006	1,187
2017	-	244	502
2018	-	125	4
2019	-	9,681[32]	2,941[33]
Total:	585,028	271,086	211,354

The BMW Z9 (or Z9 Gran Turismo) is a concept coupé introduced at the 1999 Frankfurt Auto Show,^[34] with a convertible variant later unveiled at the 2000 Paris Auto Show.^[35] The vehicle features unique gull-wing doors that also opened like a conventional hinged door and innovations such as an early concept of BMW's iDrive system, called the Intuitive Interaction Concept, were incorporated into other production vehicles.^[36] Much of the styling found on the E63 6 Series is also derived from the Z9.^[37]

• List of BMW vehicles