BMW Z13 concept 1993

Maybe its just me but it seems that the concept cars that were made during the late 80s and early 90s were much more adventurous than the ones now. Sure there are some beautiful styli9ng exercises done now and sometimes a lot of what goes to shows ends up being mass produced but in those cases it either becomes something impossibly impractical, or in the later case something too "normal".

In the early 90s BMW made a series of concept cars dubbed Zxx. The Z stood for Zukunft or future in German. Ill start with the Z13 and show some other ones later on.

If I were in the market for a small city car right now I would take this bar none! No Fiat 500 or Mini Cooper for me...this little thing just looks hot! The wide arches manage to make it look like a proper sports car not a city run about. Plus it was a three seater, had a half glass roof AND was rear engined! I mean...how many quirky things did they want to cram into one car!?

There were two cars built, both the blue and red ones used K series motorcycle engines but the blue one used a CVT transmission and the red one a standard 5 speed. The original designer of the Z13, Robert Powell, actually drove the red one around as a regular daily driver as it was a fully functioning car.

Sadly when BMW bought Rover, and along with it Mini, they deemed that this project was no longer useful since they had the rights to the Mini brand. The Mini of course went on to be a huge success...but I would much rather have preferred this!