For years when I ran this website remotely from Austin, I’d make fun of my New York City-based coworkers whenever they’d complain about their summer heat. I thought they were cowardly, soft. “It’s not really hot if it’s under 105 degrees!,” I’d say to them over and over again, as they desperately searched for ways to boot me out of Slack. But it turns out they were right: summer in New York City, particularly in August, is a special kind of humid swamp hell where the garbage and pee smells are just a bit extra pungent.
The answer to this, as people have done over many decades, is to leave. And so that is what I am doing for the next week—going upstate to get away from the heat and the bad smells. I’m doing so in this: a BMW M850i Convertible.
What do you want to know about the new 8 Series droptop?
BMW’s new biggest coupe (and convertible, and gran coupe) came out last year, and it revived a nameplate from the 1990s that’s synonymous with high technology and even higher repair bills.
The new one’s a little more buttoned down than the old one—the pop-up headlights are gone, for one—but it’s still luxurious enough to be worthy of flagship coupe status. Frankly, in our current world of total SUV dominance, I’m just glad BMW still sees fit to build stuff like this.
Until the M8 gets released, this is the most potent 8 Series ‘vert you can buy. It’s powered by a 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 packing 523 horsepower. BMW’s xDrive all-wheel drive is the only drivetrain option, as is the eight-speed automatic gearbox. And despite weighing in at some 4,800 pounds, it’ll still do zero to 60 mph in just 3.8 seconds.
I don’t have a sticker for this one yet and won’t until I pick it up later, but the M850i convertible starts at $121,400. Flagship coupery doesn’t come cheap, kids.
What do you wanna know about this thing? Drop your questions in the comments and I’ll address them in an upcoming review.