Showing posts with label bmw 850i. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bmw 850i. Show all posts

Thursday, June 05, 2014

BMW Celebrates 25 years of the BMW 8 series Coupe

 
Recently BMW celebrated the 25th anniversary of the BMW 8 series coupe. This flagship coupe was basically BMW's halo car in the late 1980s and the early to mid 1990s. Launched in 1989 the BMW 850i was quite close to what a BMW supercar could have been (aside from the earlier BMW M1 that is). It had a 5.0 liter V12 engine that also powered the 750i and it made 300hp with 450Nm enabling the sleek coupe to have a 0-100kmh of 6.8seconds (with either a 6 speed manual gearbox or slightly slower with a 4 speed automatic). This was later upgraded to a 5.6liter V12 in 1993 and the car could hit 100kmh in under 6 seconds. One must remember that this was the 1990s and this was good enough those days. 

BMW also launched a 840i with a 4.0liter V8 making 286hp. Not as fast as the V12 versions, but still having the same sleek styling, pop up headlights and was also filled with tech. Note that the 8 Series actually had active steering as well as some rear wheel steering too. It had a lot of stuff that we see today in the latest BMWs.