Earlier than BMW launched the second-generation 8 Sequence in 2018, the corporate teamed up with Pininfarina for a particular idea automotive. The pair created the BMW Pininfarina Gran Lusso Coupe, a surprising one-off designed to preview the model’s subsequent flagship providing. Though BMW by no means supposed to show the Gran Lusso Coupe right into a manufacturing mannequin, it shared many similarities with the manufacturing G81 8 Sequence that may debut 5 years later.

BMW gave Pininfarina “whole freedom” for the challenge, stated the model’s design director, Fabio Filippini, in 2013. “They actually belief our ability, our capability of deciphering their design identification and the design values.” The German automaker often interjected to make sure the idea was “not going towards the BMW identification,” but it surely was a Pininfarina-led challenge in any other case.

Picture by: BMW

The Gran Lusso debuted with BMW’s trademark kidney grille, completed in matte-sheen aluminum, with a shark nostril slant and the design strains extending out from the grille and badge. Easy strains shaped the coupe’s face, with a large decrease grille opening hiding the delicate Pininfarina branding, with smooth LED headlights on high. The automotive’s excessive beltline sat under a smooth, rearward-positioned greenhouse accented with a singular Hofmeister kink and a daring V-12 badge on the C-pillar.

The coupe rode on 21-inch wheels with a two-tone end, turning the 15 spokes right into a five-spoke design. The rear, which resembled the 8 Sequence launched a number of years later, had trapezoidal exhaust finishers and L-shaped LED taillights related throughout the trunk.

Picture by: BMW

Picture by: BMW

Picture by: BMW

“They actually belief our ability, our capability of deciphering their design identification and the design values.”

Inside, Pininfarina enhanced BMW’s design language of the time, angling the controls towards the motive force. An rectangular opening within the roof allowed for further mild into the cabin, whereas the automaker claimed the coupe’s rear seat featured legroom “virtually on a par with that of a big luxurious sedan.”

Pininfarina added high-grade tobacco-brown leather-based from the Foglizzo leather-based manufacturing unit, a headliner made with virgin wool, and a deep-pile carpet. It additionally sourced 48,000-year-old Kauri wooden, “among the many rarest timbers on the planet,” to make use of all through the cabin. The wooden is native to New Zealand and has a singular grain that may shift colours from gold to pink to brown, relying on the sunshine and viewing angle.

Then Senior Vice President of BMW Group Design, Adrian van Hooydonk, stated on the time of the automotive’s debut that the idea expressed “hallmark BMW values.”

The automaker by no means detailed the twin-turbocharged V-12 engine that powered the idea, solely referring to the variety of cylinders hiding below the hood. It doubtless used the eight-speed computerized and the 6.0-liter V-12 that propelled the 760i of the period, which made 535 horsepower and 553 pound-feet of torque and solely powered the rear wheels.

Different good-looking idea vehicles have proven up because the Gran Lusso; The Skytop, the Touring Coupe, and the Imaginative and prescient Neue Klasse. However the Gran Lusso was actually the final vestige of fresh, minimalist design throughout the BMW lineup. It joins an extended listing of gorgeous BMWs that by no means reached manufacturing.

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