Here’s Why the BMW Z8 Is Worth $200,000

this is a 2000 BMW z8 and it's one of the most beautiful cars of all time it's also an unusually good investment when this car was new back in 2000 the original asking price was somewhere around one hundred and twenty-nine thousand dollars today the average asking price for a used z8 on auto trader is just over two hundred thousand dollars today I'm going to show you why this thing never really depreciated and why this car is worth every bit of two hundred grand to start a little background every other BMW from the early 2000s started at a certain price and it's now worth way less than that price like for example a 2000 BMW 328i is currently worth like 3 grand and that's normal but the z8 bucked the trend and in fact it bucked the trend of basically every other car from its era these things never really lost value and in recent years they've only been going up then again the z8 is a special car BMW made it for only four years from 2000 to 2003 and they only made about five thousand seven hundred for the entire world roughly half of those came to the United States it's also beautiful its design was meant to evoke the old BMW 507 roadster but modernized and I personally think this is the single most beautiful retro car ever designed today I've borrowed this z8 from a viewer here in Northern Virginia and I'm going to show you around it and show you it's surprisingly large amount of quirks and features and then I'm going to get it out on the road and tell you how it drives and then I'm gonna give it a dug score and for more of my thoughts on the z8 click the link below to visit autotrader.com slash oversteer I'll start here with the roof now if you watch last couple minutes you realize that right now the car looks like it's kind of wearing a hat that's because the z8 is not just a convertible but it also comes with a removable hardtop that you can remove or install if you want to drive the car in the winter and you don't want to just deal with the soft top before I get started with any other quirks we're going to remove the hard time removing the top isn't all that difficult first you remove this plastic panel on the side of the table then you take a tool and remove these bolts fastening it to the car then you remove this plastic cover on top of the windshield and use the tool to turn the top from locked to unlocked top removal takes two people but what happens next is bizarre every single z8 was sold with this little stand for the top so you can stow it when it's not in use and check this out it's even on wheels so you can roll it around when it's not in use [Music] and it gets even better the hardtop also came with a cover that says z8 on it so you can distinguish it from all your other removable hard tops on a stand which means now that the hardtop is out of the way let's talk engine now the vast majority of Z eights used a 4.9 liter v8 with 400 horsepower mated to a six-speed manual transmission is borrowed from the m5 at the time the e39 now with that in mind let me clear up a misconception about this car at the very end of the model run in 2003 there was also a BMW z8 by Alpena now Alpena usually makes high-performance versions of regular BMW cars but in this case the Alpena model was actually worse the Alpena used the 4.8 liter v8 from the top level x5 SUV not the m5 like the regular z8 and every Alpina z8 had an automatic transmission they were supposed to be like luxury touring versions of the za now for some reason when collectors buy these things they go for the Alpena models probably because they're rarer they only made 555 of those but they're worse if you're interested in buying as 8 and having fun with it this is the one you want and not the automatic transmission less powerful Alpena model anyway with that out of the way on to the quirks and some time under the hood we might as well start there there a couple of interesting things under here one of which is the fact that when the z8 first came out they had a lot of problems with the chassis the sub frames in these cars would crack just like the e46 m3 which was a real problem at the frame the stiffness of the car so to remedy that a lot of Z eights had this bar retrofitted across the entire engine inside the engine bay the goal was to tighten everything up and sort of minimize the subframe cracking and a lot of the aid owners say it works pretty well now the other interesting thing I find under the hood is the coolant reservoir instead of saying coolant on it it says cold they've just stuck that in the plastic mold for it I guess at least you know what's supposed to go in there cold stuff next I'm moving on to the outside of the z8 this car is undeniably beautiful but I think one of the things that helps it look so stylish is the fact that there are a lot of nice-looking chrome accents on the outside of the car that just totally fit for example they chromed the little vent on the fenders they chromed the outside of the mirrors they even chromed the little water Jetts on the top of the hood and of course they also chromed the door handles now the door handles have an interesting little trick to them when you walk up this car course it has keyless entry so you press the unlock button the doors unlock but what if your car battery is dead or the battery in your keyless remote is dead and so you can't get inside you can see there's no keyhole BMW thought of that and there is a trick to this door handle even though this looks like a regular old door handle walk up to it and you can slide off the rear third of the door handle and it reveals a hidden keyhole stick the key in you can unlock the door take the key back out and it automatically slides closed to hide the keyhole and preserve the cars beautiful lines and since we're talking about the z8 ski hole let's talk about its key the key is interesting it's just a standard regular everyday BMW key except on the back of it they've screwed it in a little plate that says z8 with the world's tiniest screws that is not the most interesting thing about the key though that would be the key pouches take a look at this when you bought a z8 new almost 20 years ago they gave you these little pouches with it two of them one for each key they look like tiny little holders for your tennis racket except they're for the keys they even say z8 on them they're leather they have zippers they're very weird now the weirdest thing about these key patches is that they actually have little areas where you can attach a keyring so if you wanted to walk around with your z8 key on your key ring but you didn't want to damage it or have it exposed to the world you could keep it in your key pouch and still have it on your keyring this is really weird but nonetheless the z8 had it but those key pouches aren't really all that surprising when you start to realize that a lot of the stuff you got when you bought your z8 was designed to protect the stuff you got when you bought your za for example you got the to keep ouches to protect your two keys you also got the removable hardtop to protect your interior and then there's a cover for the removable hardtop like I showed you before to protect the hardtop and then there's that little wheeled thing that it's on in order to protect all of it the car also came with a car cover to stick over the entire vehicle to protect that and when the roof is down there is a little cover back here to protect the top mechanism to make sure nothing gets in there and kind of screws it up by the way this is irrelevant to the video but don't you think that the bag for the Car Cover looks like it would make a perfect pillow just look at this thing mmm now I can sleep next to my z8 on my z8 car cover that says e8 on the bag okay we're getting off the rails here back to the outside of the car and in the front now this car has something unusual about its headlights I have always assumed looking at this car then it has headlights in the normal place and then those lights in the grille are the fog lights but that is in the case of course the headlights are in the real place but those things in the grille are actually the high beams take a look at this on flashing the high B's right now and you can see that they are turning on instead this car doesn't have front fog lights just as headlights the high beams and then of course the little orange lights are the turn signal the parking light the next stop moving on to the rear of the z8 now this particular z8 is a European model was sold originally in Europe and then import to the United States and has a couple of changes from the US car and the biggest changes you can see are in the back for example the brake lights and tail lights on the US cars it was all red but the Euro cars had an orange turn signal and back instead and personally I prefer the look of the orange it looks really cool when it's on also interesting in this is the 8 you can see the license plate on either side of the license plate the lights are red however the light on the left of the license plate that's the rear fog light you turn on when it's foggy on the right of the license plate that's actually the reverse light and when you put the car in reverse it lights up as white even though it displays as red when it's off the idea is it gives the car a little bit more symmetry it's a little better looking if they're both red even though that light actually lights up as white it's kind of cool another cool quirk on the outside of the z8 that would be the vents on the front fenders now at this point a lot of performance cars have these fender vents but the z8 basically started that trend was an Amash to the original BMW 507 which had those vents they brought them back on this car in 2000 and then they've sort of proliferated in the car industry since then now these vents are cool for a couple of reasons besides just being trendsetters one of which is that they have the BMW roundel emblem mounted inside them it's the same size as the emblem on the hood on the trunk and so this car has four normal size BMW roundel emblems mounted on the outside between those two and the ones in the vents in addition it also has the four in the center cap so the a BMW emblems on the outside of this car which is kind of unusual also interesting about the events I really like that they include the turn signals now European regulations say the cars have to have a turn signal mounted somewhere on the side an addition to the front and rear so you can see if someone's making a lane change a lot of cars incorporate into the mirror and that's boring and normal this thing puts it in the vents right behind the BMW logo and it just looks really cool when the turn signals are on next time climbing inside the z8 the first thing you notice is sort of a beautiful simplicity I'll get to that in a minute the other thing you notice is toggle switches or to start with the toggle switch right by your left foot you notice that right when you climb in that toggle switch is on it controls two separate things in one switch if you push it up you open the fuel door if you push it down you open the trunk and of course it isn't really visible to you when you're sitting here so you kind of have to remember which it opens or else well you'll probably open the other thing but moving on to the driver's door panel you will find a different toggle switch and also probably my favorite quirk about the entire z8 take a look at this when you open up the driver's door and climb inside you'll notice there's only one toggle switch on the driver's door panel to roll down the window so you're thinking well that's annoying I can roll down the drivers window that I got to reach over to roll down the passengers window not quite if you look further down you will also notice the mirror controls there's a little switch that you move to control the left mirror you move it to the right it controls the right mirror and the controls are below it just like in a normal car well guess what that little switch that lets you choose which mirror you want to control also lets you choose which window you want to roll down if you have the switch in the left position you're controlling just the driver window now flip that switch to the right and you roll down the passenger window using the exact same toggle switch you used to roll down the drivers window and here's the coolest part put that little mirror adjustment switch in the middle and you can roll down both windows at the same time now I've never see that at any other car before it's a bizarre feature a quirk only of the z8 and it isn't labeled but that sort of speaks to the other theme of this car which is simplicity instead of sticking two switches in there and little labels that tell you which thing does which it's just there you think it out and it's a very simple solution to the problem of adjusting the mirrors and rolling down the windows just one little joystick one little lever and one little toggle switch all unlabeled now next up we move on to the steering wheel now again in the theme of simplicity in this car the steering wheel isn't cluttered with buttons for the cruise control of the radio volume it just sort of has this old retro look with these little kind of streaks coming from the steering wheel rim into the middle this is one of the most distinctive steering wheels in the entire car business and I love it now right behind the steering wheel also keeping with sort of the simplicity the beauty theme of this interior are the signal stalks and a wiper stock look at them they're just they're so nice and they were clearly made specifically for this car they match with the general look and style of the interior next up one interesting item next to the steering wheel that would be the engine start button it looks really cool it says engines start and it's this little black button you're pushing like you're detonating a bomb except it doesn't actually start the engine this car came from an era before they were doing that you actually have to insert the key twist it like a normal car and then press the engine and Start button so the engine start button which is supposed to be cool and sort of simplifies the process of starting the car well it actually ends up adding a step which is funny and speaking of the key engine start ignition situation take a listen to the noise this car makes when you turn off the car and you forget to turn off the headlights now obviously a lot of cars chime when you forget to turn off the headlights but this is just throw those bizarre noises I've ever heard I don't know why BMW decided that was the noise they wanted to go with in this car it's almost funny next up I want to move on to storage this car has some sort of unusual storage situations for example I'll start with the door panel there are two different storage pockets on the door panel which is nice and useful the front one stays open when you open it the rear one closes automatically when you open it even though they're shaped the same and they have basically the same overall look there's also a storage pocket on the inside and the center console that's not particularly unusual what is unusual about it is that it locks with the glove box if you turn the key inside the glove box latch to lock the glove box it also locks the center console storage area I've never seen that in another car you can even hear it lock as you turn the key it's a really good idea and since we're sort of poking around the interior it's worth noting that basically the only place it says e8 on this car aside from the key is right in the middle between the seats it doesn't even say z8 on the outside just right here that's the only way that you're reminded that you're driving the ultra-cool z8 another interesting quirk in this car is the map lights now because this is a convertible so they can't exactly stick a dome light right here since it won't be around when the top is down they've integrated the map lights in to the interior rear view mirror push a little button the light turns on push the button on the other side and a passenger side light turns on but that isn't the coolest part check this out that little red circle thing in the middle of those two lights well it has a little light inside of it that comes on and blinks when you lock the doors to let you know that the alarm is on but it also has a second purpose if you twist it it turns on both map lights at once twist it again and it turns them both off they integrated the alarm light into the controls for the map light another great example of sort of the simplicity of this interior also interesting in this interior that would be the center gauges the gauges in this car are not in front of the steering wheel and they didn't do this to save money when they put the car in left hand drive or right hand drive markets because the gauges are clearly tilted towards the driver so they had to make two sets of gauges in a different gauge cluster anyway instead I suspect they did this as sort of a retro thing all sixties sports cars did have their gauges in the middle or at least the tachometer and the speedometer like this one I find it interesting people complaining about the model threes gauges in the middle the speedometer in the middle hey the BMW z8 had it too also interesting in those gauges a couple of weird quirks one of which is that when you turn the headlights those gauges they light up not sort of from the back but instead they're lit like from the middle little red light projects out onto the gauge from the middle it says old retro thing and it looks really cool maybe less cool is the fact that even the turn signal indicator is over in the middle put on your turn signal and the little blinking light inside the interior lights up in the middle next to the gauges to let you know that your turn signals on so if you're driving along like this you could easily miss seeing that your turn signals on since the light isn't in the usual place that could be kind of annoying one other interesting item in the gauge cluster that would be the clock instead of fitting some clock and some awkward spot in the interior and thus cluttering it a little more instead they fitted the clock in the middle of the tachometer at the bottom it's an odd place for a clock but it's unlabeled and it doesn't sort of get in the way of anything else and I do find it kind of cool now speaking of simplicity I've talked about that a lot with this interior and simplicity really is sort of the name of the game as he moved down from the gauges for example the climate controls are incredibly simple they don't have any words printed on them just sort of icons and it's very easy to figure out they didn't even bother putting big blue lines for cold or big red line for red instead it's just little dashes and you just kind of understand what it's supposed to mean if you're buying this card you didn't need everything sort of spoon-fed to you I also really like the little climate control button for the windshield defroster it's so incredibly tiny it's got to be the tiniest climate control button I've ever seen but you push it and it turns on the windshield defroster it's just sort of small and out of the way because it's really not all that important also interesting the dials to open and close the climate vents they don't even have a direction on them letting you know if up is open or up is closed or whatever they're just sort of there and you're supposed to figure out they didn't want to clutter the interior with little box that says this way is closed you just figure it out in time move beyond that and things get even simpler above the gear lever and below the climate controls there's just four buttons there's the sport button press it in the car becomes sporty-er there's the hazard lights there is the door locks and then there's one more toggle switch and that would be for the convertible top and speaking of the convertible top I know how much you people like to watch the tops go up and down and so well here you go [Music] now interestingly if you watch closely there you'll notice the table didn't automatically close all the way I had to help it along fortunately it's pretty easy the top comes close to closing all the way and then you just pull it the rest of the way and it automatically latches I'm not sure why the car couldn't just do this for you but it can't now with all that said I will say to some extent all that simplicity I've talked about it's just a little fake because if you go up from the four simple buttons you will find a little panel push that panel and that is where the car's stereo infotainment thing is and of course that is just your typical kind of complicated BMW system from the early 2000s although this particular one adds an extra level of complication because this is a euro car that whole system is in German and here's the craziest thing it even has navigation so even though there's no screen there's no color screen there's no touchscreen it's just that little tiny screen this car has a navigation system it doesn't show you where to go instead it tells you where to go in German shockingly the owner tells me he's never used that navigation system the next up we move on to the Z eights trunk now the trunk itself is not particularly interesting there's nothing special back here really it's just an automotive trunk except there are two little tiny quirks one of those quirks is on the warning triangle that's included in all of the trunks of all the Z eights take a look at this in graphic it's like an old-time nineteen hundred's motorcar driving down the street and you put the little triangle behind it to let people know that you're broken down it's not really befitting of a z8 and then there's this box BMW calls it the BMW Mobility set now even though this car is originally sold with run-flat tires inside the mobility set you'll find a compressor and tire sealant and really it looks like the kind of thing a world doctor would carry when he goes on house calls maybe the strangest item in there is a little decal you're supposed to I guess put on the windshield I don't know when you're using the tire sealant to let you know you're not supposed to exceed fifty miles an hour like as a reminder as if anyone is going to do that of course then you remember this is a German car and so some people actually will do that in Germany and so those are the quirks and features of the z8 which is surprisingly quirky for a German car and for a BMW and now I'm going to do something I've wanted to do ever since I first saw a bright red z8 in the parking lot of my eye doctor right after it first came out when I was 12 years old I'm gonna get behind the wheel and take this car for a drive all right driving the z8 I got to put up the windows so that you can hear me unfortunately now I look like one of those windows up to invertible guys this is pretty cool so it's kind of like something I've always wanted to do the first thing I noticed the shift lever and transmission action just feels great the shift lever is so easy to use it just feels like a 3-series I like the sound it's not too aggressive it sounds good but not you know I mean I didn't even show an exhaust Rev before it's not worthy event but it's a good sound it's like a good throaty deep sound but but not like overly so it is fun to do a nice Rev match downshift the clutch is very easy the gear lever is very easy to operate it's very easy to sort of figure out where you have to go to Rev match surprisingly easy car to drive I will say it's tremendously clear even from just a couple of minutes behind the wheel that this is not a car that you throw around back roads like you're on a little tight course this car is a very long front end it's got a heavy front end it feels like sort of a heavy car this is definitely more of a cruiser and to that end you kind of understand a little bit more why they built that Alpina model with the automatic and those sort of the luxury build but I'd still would rather shifting gears myself it certainly does not handle or feel as precise as a lot of you know modern new cars do that just isn't the world in which it lives the steering is not tremendously precise it doesn't feel like like like a tight little corner carving vehicle the owner of this car also has an SLS that thing is so much tighter around every little curve whatever this car this car is not quite like that this car is definitely feels like more of a cruiser now you may be wondering how a euro car was important to the United States our import laws said cars to be 25 years old however if a car is substantially similar to one that was sold in the United States you can bring it over with some minor modifications and the z8 obviously was sold here so they brought over this euro one maybe at the time there were no good US ones on the market this one is cheap whatever the reason it came over and what do you do that you have to only make a few modifications you got to change the headlight pattern sometimes you got to change the speedometer to read in miles rather than kilometers but it's not a tremendously expensive process maybe ten grand which on a car like this you know a $200,000 car if exchange rates make sense I mean that's that could be a drop in the bucket this certainly isn't a corner Carver like a Miata it has a bigger feel than that that the long front-end certainly doesn't give you a lot of confidence that you're just going to be able to sue around corners I mean this cars a really big long front you can see all of it when you're sitting here it really kind of almost looks and feels like an old e-type or something like that this is kind of a cool experience I mean you can't buy this thing thinking it's going to be as fast as a modern exotic sports car but you buy it because you can roll your own gears and you can do it pretty easily and sort of fun it's pretty quick but it isn't it isn't like crazy fast by any means it's it's just reasonably quick it moves pretty quickly and it gets going pretty fast it's just not you know by modern standards it's not raucous it's not insane you know like a lot of cars it's Noah it's the $200,000 a modern car I don't that gets you into a use McLaren this isn't anywhere near on that level in terms of speed but in terms of enjoyment I don't know it's a beautiful interior it's a beautiful car and I kind of like the whole like just cruise it on a back road top-down thing it feels great and so that's the BMW z8 it's gorgeous it's cool it's fun to drive and it's a stick-shift low production exotic car which is the ticket to collectability right now no BMW isn't Ferrari or Lamborghini in terms of brand image but this is one of my favorite sports cars and I think it is the most beautiful car manufactured during my lifetime and when you factor all those things in it's easy to see why these are selling for $200,000 and now on to the Doug score starting with the weekend categories in styling this one is obvious the z8 is gorgeous and it's an easy 10 out of 10 next up is acceleration the z8 does 0 to 60 and 4.4 seconds and it gets a 7 out of 10 as for handling it just isn't as tight or precise as many modern cars or even some cars from its era it's a good cruiser and it gets a 6 out of 10 cool factor is undeniable as this car draws a crowd with even the most casual car enthusiasts and it gets an 8 out of 10 as for importance this car plays a big role in BMWs history it's the brand's best-known modern vehicle and it boasts a truly iconic design and it gets an 8 out of 10 add it all up in the total weekend score is 39 out of 50 which is a strong number next up for the daily categories starting with features the z8 may be minimalist but it does have a reasonable level of equipment and who can forget the wonderful German navigation system it gets a 4 out of 10 Comfort is better than you might expect this is no harsh sports car and it gets a 5 out of 10 quality is a bit mixed the interior is truly excellent but the cars had some reliability issues like the subframe problem and the vanos engine isn't known for reliability still it gets a 7 out of 10 if only for the wonderful quality everywhere else as for practicality it's not so practical it has just too seats and only 5.1 cubic feet of cargo space and it gets a 2 out of 10 finally there's value the z8 is wildly expensive but it's also gone up in value pretty much since the day it came out and it's likely not going down and for that alone it easily earns a 7 out of 10 bringing the total daily score to 25 out of 50 add it up in the dug score is 64 out of 100 which places it relatively near the middle of the pack it's a fun car but it's not excessively fast or thrilling instead it mainly stands out for its rarity especially among BMWs and for having one of the most beautiful designs of any modern car

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 2,618,414

Rating: 4.8154745 out of 5

Keywords: bmw z8, z8, bmw z8 alpina, bmw z4, bmw z3, bmw supercar, doug demuro, demuro, bmw, best bmw, coolest bmw, most expensive bmw, rare bmw, bmw sports car, bmw roadster, luxury bmw

Id: Fyj1fcJbaWc

Length: 26min 35sec (1595 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 27 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/BobaFeta_]

Doug, you forgot to mention it is also a Bond car, appearing in The World Is Not Enough, which also adds to its cool factor.

[u/KingPetunia]

BMW knew it was going to be a collectors item.

In order to promote the Z8 to collectors and reinforce media speculation about the Z8's "instant classic" potential, BMW promised that a 50-year stockpile of spare parts would be maintained in order to support the Z8 fleet.

[u/S0MAR]

to me the styling of this car is closer to an 8/10 rather than a 10/10. But hey its the dougscore and not the random redditor score.

[u/Hawksx4]

/u/doug-demuro I've always wondered if the owners are standing off camera watching you review the cars. If so what did the owner think when you laid down next to it on the car cover?

[u/Mr_Ekles]

I didn't realize they were so expensive! I always assumed that they were around the $50k mark for some reason, but I guess not!

[u/[deleted]]

Doug you really liked those climate controls. Check this interior out.

[u/blue_bomber697]

It's a unique and nice looking car. Can't say I'd spend $200K on it though. I don't see the value in this one unfortunately.

[u/ArttVandelay]

That looks like quite the house. Good taste all around.

[u/eover]

It isn't.