If you haven’t noticed, we love James Bond cars. True, not every Bond car has been great, but we’d put the BMW Z8, which Pierce Brosnan’s Bond drove in 1999’s The World Is Not Enough, among the most desirable of the secret agent’s rides. If you plan on being in the Phoenix, Arizona area in late January (or have a computer) this nearly new 2002 Z8 roadster could be yours.
Introduced in 1999, the Z8 was a direct outgrowth of the Z07 concept that BMW displayed the 1997 Tokyo Auto Show. The concept was built as an homage to the classic BMW 507 and was supposed to be nothing more than a show car. Under the watchful eye of lead designer, Chris Bangle, Henrik Fisker created the concept’s beautiful exterior—and the car elicited such a strong response in Tokyo that BMW decided to put it into production. Two years later the Z8 roadster was born.
READ MORE: Our Original BMW Alpina Roadster V-8 Review
In our test, we clocked a 0-60 mph time of just 4.5 seconds, not surprising considering there’s an M5-based 400-hp V-8 providing motivation from beneath that long aluminum hood. And speaking of aluminum, the roadster’s chassis is entirely made of the stuff, which helped keep weight down while retaining chassis rigidity.
According to RM Auctions, this Z8 is barely broken-in with only 550 miles on the clock. Given the low miles, we’d say it’s unlikely this example has ever suffered the fate of the Bond car, which was cut in half by a baddie in a helicopter. The original sticker price for these was close to $130k, but given the current market, we wouldn’t be surprised to see this one go for more than double that.
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