Unveiled at the 2023 Villa d’Este Concours d’Elegance, the BMW Concept Touring Coupe might not remain a one-off model for long. Adrian van Hooydonk, the BMW Group’s head of design, told Autoblog that he’s open to making a small batch of coupes if there’s enough demand.
“It is a one-off at the moment, and there are no concrete plans to put it in production, but we made an agreement before we set sail for Lake Como that if there’s enough interest we will take a look at it. It could be a very low-volume version, like 50 cars or so,” he revealed.
It doesn’t take a great deal of mental gymnastics to imagine BMW could sell 50 examples with relative ease. Beyond the rarity, which would undoubtedly boost the model’s appeal in the eyes of collectors, the shooting brake-like roof line would make it a hit among younger buyers who grew up lusting after the Z3 Coupe released in 1998. Of course, it takes more than a wish to turn a concept car into a production model, and van Hooydonk said it’s still too early to tell whether the Concept Touring Coupe will receive the proverbial green light for production.
“I would like that,” he said with a smile.
There’s even better news: if the Concept Touring Coupe becomes a production model, it may not be very far away. Van Hooydonk brought up the 3.0 CSL Hommage R concept presented at the 2015 edition of the Concours d’Elegance. Plans to build it weren’t announced at the time but it morphed into the limited-edition 3.0 CSL in 2022. “Maybe we can do [the Concept Touring Coupe] a bit quicker,” he hinted.
As for the roof line, the Z3 Coupe flavor is intentional. “We could have done a fastback coupe but we very quickly decided on the bread van, or shooting brake, architecture because we felt that it would make it a bit more iconic,” van Hooydonk explained. He added that, while the Z3 Coupe fueled controversy when it made its debut 25 years ago, it has become a sought-after classic due in part to its unusual silhouette.
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