The missing 850i roadster

I had the good fortune to be able to tour the BMW Museum and BMW Welt in Munich two weeks ago. The Welt was disappointing; cool architecture, and free, but kind of like a dealership on steroids. Plus, all of the cool things they showed on the “behind the scenes” tour are only available for Europe-ordered cars.

The Museum, on the other hand, was amazing! Too many pics to post, but one vehicle really caught my eye: a 1990 850i roadster! The plaque said it got all the way through the development process, but was never released for production. One of the best cars in the entire collection!

Thought you all might appreciate this gem!

Very cool to see! Funny enough Audi also had a roadster get inches away from production around the same time and was killed at the last moment. The Audi Quattro Spyder was revealed in 1991 with AWD, a mid-engine V6, and a 5MT, and got all the way up to tooling being produced for production but was killed for a variety of reasons, including pricing being much higher than initially planned and not wanting to step too much on Porsche's toes when the latter was in a very rough financial position.

Very cool!

It is a beauty, all I can say is what a shame it wasn't released!

Yooperboy877 wrote

The Welt was disappointing; cool architecture, and free, but kind of like a dealership on steroids.

Have to agree with this.

Thanks for sharing!

Funny how it’s all German language except the sign that says, “don’t touch”.

Dozer324 wrote

Funny how it’s all German language except the sign that says, “don’t touch”.

The placard on the car literally has the whole description in both German and English, what are you talking about?