Official: New BMW Z4 makes world debut

Australian designer Calvin Luk’s latest BMW has been physically revealed for the first time in the Californian sunshine at Pebble Beach, Monterey.

Officially emerging after a series of embarrassing leaks and criticism of its design, the third-generation BMW Z4 roadster will be lighter, stiffer and sportier than its predecessor.

This is thanks to an all-new chassis architecture and turbocharged inline four- and six-cylinder engines shared with the born-again Toyota Supra coupe, as well as the reversion to a folding soft-top roof.

With no pure M model confirmed at the top of the range, the M40i will be the 2019 BMW Z4 flagship, powered by BMW’s 3.0-litre turbo-petrol straight six up front and rear-wheel drive.

The Luk-designed BMW Z4 breaks some of BMW’s golden rules, most notably by moving away from the traditional twin-round headlights and instead stacking them vertically.

It is Luk’s fourth BMW model credit since joining the marque in 2008, starting with the facelifted 1 Series and also including both the current X1 and X3 exterior designs.

Luk took the Z4’s design job personally. His personal transport is an original Z4 30i in black, his parents own one of the outgoing Z4 models and the designer of the Z3 is now one of his career mentors.

He decided to shift a lot of the Z8’s proportions into the third-generation Z4, because the Bond car’s design cues remain fresh and underutilised at BMW.

While BMW is waiting for September’s Paris motor show to release full details of the Z4’s technical package, it has confirmed deliveries of the two-seat roadster will begin in Europe from about April next year.

So expect the new BMW Z4 on sale in Australia by the end of 2019.

The Z4 has been famously twinned with the Toyota Supra in arrangement that a BMW insider insists is more like a contract sports car than a co-development.

“The ‘cooperation’ is more like Toyota ordered a sports car from BMW -- we just don’t design the interior or the exterior and we don’t built it,” he said.

The Supra will have exactly the same wheelbase, width, track widths, engines and drivetrains as the Z4, which means it will be available in both four- and six-cylinder variants.

That would give both sports cars a 2470mm wheelbase and 2048mm width, though the Supra concept’s 4574mm overall length and 1230mm height are different from the Z4’s.

Still a two-seat sports roadster, the new BMW Z4’s biggest philosophical change has been to move the driver forward, closer to the front wheels, to enhance the driving experience in an effort to close the Z4’s dynamic gaps to the Porsche 718 Boxster.

The first versions of the Z4 to go on sale will be the limited-edition Z4 M40i First Edition, with Frozen Orange metallic paint, 250kW of power and a 0-100km/h sprint time of 4.6 seconds.

Limited to 250km/h, the Z4 M40i First Edition will run electronically controlled dampers, 19-inch forged alloy wheels, an M Sport differential and an M Sport braking system, making it not only more powerful than the rest of the Z4 range, but giving it a handling advantage, too.

The interior has been hugely overhauled and will be the first BMW with a fully digital instrument cluster, ditching the traditional half-moon tacho and speedo surround guides and focusing the cabin’s design heavily on the driver.

The First Edition M40i will offer a full kit of fun stuff, including a Harmon Kardon sound system, decorative stitching, memory electric seats, the ambient light option, matrix LED headlights, a head-up display (a first for a BMW roadster) and the Live Cockpit Professional option for the 12.3-inch infotainment system.