BMW i8 & DeLorean DMC 12 - Fifth Gear

thirty years ago one of the most iconic movie cars ever made it's celluloid debut the car was driven by a school kid called Marty McFly and it was designed by a slightly batty chap called doc Emmett Brown the film was Back to the Future and the car was this a DeLorean dmc-12 with its sharp lines go indoors and bare metal stainless steel finish it was the perfect time travel machine the film might have featured out-of-this-world gadgets like hoverboards and flux capacitors but the DeLorean itself was very real sharing underpinnings with a lotus esprit and a rear-mounted v6 engine a cool 8,000 pounds and this 21st century car could have been yours back in the early 80s the Back to the Future trilogy was a box-office success but the same can't be said about the car us emission laws strangled the performance the handling wasn't as sharp as the body suggests and after just eight and a half thousand cars had being produced their company went bankrupt fast forward to 30 years and it's the turn of another manufacturer to offer its vision of the supercar future this is the BMW i8 and it looks absolutely stunning but unlike the DeLorean this car has a power plant to match it's science fiction looks the headline when it comes to the i8 is its hybrid power there's a three cylinder turbocharged petrol engine from a mini that produces 228 bhp and an electric engine that puts out 129 bhp it'll do 135 miles to the gallon and it's got super low emissions now while all of that is pretty impressive on paper it will mean nothing if this BMW is all faint and no sinner let's find out now in the real world you are not going to get 135 miles to the gallon more like 50 and if you use and abuse the performance then you're more likely to see somewhere around 25 mpg which isn't bad considering when you cane a Porsche 911 you'll get somewhere in the mid to late teens pushed to its limits the i8 will get to 62 miles an hour in just 4.4 seconds and go on to 155 mph around town the steering is so light all you need to do it seems is breathe on it and it moves it's got such a great turning circle as well so you can get in and out of tight spots with no problem put your foot on the throttle and things do wait up but you never get that wonderful truly connected feel that you do in a 911 perhaps the oddest thing to get your head around is the fact that the electric motor powers the front wheels and the petrol engine the rear so you think that the handling would be all over the shop when you go around the Pens but it's not like that at all turn in and you get a nice and crisp grip the balance is well composed and you can power out of the corners and the high-tech approach doesn't end there the central tub is carbon fiber and the body panels have thermoplastic the glass is the same uber light technology used in smartphones which all keeps the i8 under a trim 1500 kilos the i8 has a number of different driving modes as it is with most hybrid cars you spend most of your time with the petrol engine engaged but the electric motor is always regenerating the batteries when you lift off the throttle or you brake however if you want you can select an all-electric mode in which case the car has a range of 23 miles and a top speed of 75 mph and if you really want to save on your supercar running costs you can even recharge the batteries using the mains so is this just a Toyota hybrid in wolf's clothing no it is so much more than that and proof that hybrid technology doesn't have to be in middle of the road Monday at the end of back to the future doc travels to 2050 if he'd seen the BMW i8 he'd have thought it was a work of fiction dreamed up by some movie types but the wonderful thing is that car is real right now it's futuristic looks are fantastic and it is very good to drive but right now the temptation to go back to the future is too strong to resist has it lost all of that twisty road eagerness and the answer is a definite no you

Channel: Fifth Gear

Views: 311,440

Rating: 4.7152634 out of 5

Keywords: BMW i8, DeLorean DMC 12, De Lorean Motor Company (Automobile Company), BMW (Award Winner), Back To The Future, Back To The Future Car, i8, Fifth Gear, car, review, fast, crash, fifth, gear, Tiff Needell, Jason Plato, Vicki Butler-Henderson, car review

Id: 3Ut6suu7mfo

Length: 5min 10sec (310 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 21 2015