Why the BMW E31 8 Series Is a Modern Classic
BMW
From the beginning of its gestation, at the start of the 1980s, the first BMW 8 Series was designed and developed to change the way people viewed the automaker. It may not have sold as many units as originally hoped, but now, coming on four decades after it made its debut at the Frankfurt Motorshow in 1989, there’s no doubting that it did just that.
When the sleek grand tourer, better known amongst enthusiasts as the E31, officially arrived on the scene the next year, it ushered in a new era for the German marque. The car, which supplanted, but did not actually replace, the E24 6 Series, didn’t just look different than any Bimmer before it; it was also more powerful thanks to a mammoth V-12 engine. It also, somewhat controversially, raised the bar for how much one of the automaker’s cars could cost.
Now, so many years later, it is easy to forget how forward-thinking the E31 8 Series was at the time of its debut. Here are five reasons why the boundary-pushing GT is a true modern classic.
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The $1 Billion Car
Image Credit: BMW The 1970s and ‘80s were good to BMW. The E24 6 Series had proven to be a success with both automotive critics and the car-buying public shortly after its 1976 debut, but the marque wanted to build something that could better compete with rival (and cost as much as) the Mercedes-Benz SLC. So, in 1981, the company started working on the grand tourer’s replacement. By 1986, the company had settled on the iconic Klaus Kapitza-penned design, and engineering and pre-production testing commenced. Three years and nearly $1 billion in development costs later, the car made its debut at Germany’s biggest automotive event, the Frankfurt Motor Show.
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High-Tech in More Ways Than One
Image Credit: BMW There’s no way around it, the E31 8 Series was a Bimmer for a new era. Computer-aided design (CAD) tools were used to design its wedge-shaped, clean-lined body, something that was still unusual in the 1980s. This method, along with extensive wind-tunnel testing, meant that the B-pillar-less coupe had a drag coefficient of just 0.29, a marked improvement over the E24 M6 0.39 drag coefficient.
The car’s sleek look wasn’t the only way it was ahead of its time for the marque. The car was also the first to feature a drive-by-wire throttle that utilized an electromagnetic system rather than a traditional mechanical linkage. The two-door was also one of the first BMW models, along with the Z1, to feature a multi-link rear axle. These features made the car more advanced than even the sportiest models that had preceded it, but also made it notoriously expensive to maintain.
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V-12 Power
Image Credit: BMW At launch, the E31 850i was available exclusively with a 5.0-liter V-12, making it just the second BMW road car to feature a 12-cylinder (the E32 750i, which debuted in 1987, was the first). The mill was mated to either a four-speed automatic or a six-speed manual and made 296 hp. Two years later, BMW introduced the 840 Ci, which featured a V-8, but the overwhelming majority of E31 units built feature the larger mill. More potent V-12s were also introduced a couple of years after launch: a 5.4-liter V-12 in 1992 for the 850 Ci, and, in 1996, a 5.6-liter V-12 in 1996 for the range-topping 850 CSi. These engines made 322 hp and 375 hp, respectively.
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The E31 at Its Best
Image Credit: RM Sotheby’s For some, the E31 8 Series is one of the defining sports cars of the 1990s. Despite this, the car never got the performance-oriented M treatment. BMW did think about building an M8—a prototype was even built, though it was hidden from sight for decades—but the idea was scrapped due to fears there’d be no market for the car because of the global recession. Because of this, the most powerful E31 of them all is the 850 CSi. It may not have an M badge, but the car was a beast with its 5.6-liter V-12, and could sprint from zero to 60 in 5.9 seconds and reach a top speed of 155 mph.
This car was also the basis for one of the greatest Alpinas of all time, the B12 5.7 Coupe. This version of the 850 CSi, as its name may have given away, featured a 12-cylinder with an even larger 5.7 liters of displacement. This, plus some other performance upgrades, pushed output to 416 hp, thanks to which the vehicle could reach a top speed of 186 mph.
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The Market Catches Up
Image Credit: BMW The orders came pouring in after the E31 8 Series made its debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1989, but the concerns that stopped BMW from moving forward with the M8, also affected overall sales for the vehicle. Some 30,603 examples of the striking coupe were built between 1990 and 1999. While not a paltry amount, it’s almost certainly not as many as the automaker had been hoping to produce. That does make particularly well-looked-after E31s something of a hot commodity on the second-hand market. In fact, the 850CSi saw its value double to $181,000 earlier this decade.
