Color us intrigued! BMW Group Head of Design Adrian van Hooydonk has taken to Instagram to share a couple of sketches of a new “one-off.” Its premiere is scheduled to take place next week at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este, and until then, all we can do is speculate what we’ll see on the shores of Lake Como.
Merging the two photos reveals we’re dealing with a small car roughly the size of a Z4. At this point, we can’t tell whether it is a coupe or a roadster. Perhaps it’s neither as we could be dealing with a shooting brake à la Z3 E36/8, although we’d put our money on a coupe, possibly taking after the Z4 E86 judging by the roofline. Regardless of body style, in the Instagram post, Adrian van Hooydonk strongly suggests the mysterious vehicle is on the small side: “As spring is finally spreading across Europe I can‘t stop thinking about a road trip over the Alps all the way down to the Mediterranean in a beautiful two-seater…”
Although BMW has been aggressively promoting electrification, we’ve heard through the grapevine the one-off will be a sports car with an internal combustion engine, quite possibly without any electrification baked in. It doesn’t seem to be one of those outlandish concepts with wild designs. From what we can tell, it has a near-production appearance. The regular size of the mirrors indicates that it’s something more down to earth. The normal-looking wheels serve as another clue.
Compared to past concepts, it has a higher chance of reaching production, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll happen. Hopefully, it won’t suffer from the same fate as the 2019 M Vision Next concept, which had to be axed due to high costs. With the debut taking place at Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este and the sketch sending a retro vibe, the one-off BMW could be a throwback to a past model.
We’ll know what’s what next week.
Source: Adrian van Hooydonk / Instagram
