BMW Skytop Concept pays tribute to iconic Z8 and 503 models (2024)

Adrian van Hooydonk says the new BMW Skytop offers all the “elegance and driving dynamics” of BMW’s 503 and Z8. Them would be fighting words were Mr. van Hooydonk not the head of BMW Group Design. Both cars, if you’ve ever seen them in the flesh, are beautiful. Both were powered by V8s (the 503 the first ever for BMW) and both remain icons of the brand.

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Both are unfortunately also famed for only being appreciated long after they were no longer for sale. The 503 was priced way beyond the means of the common German right after the Second World War (Hagerty says its US$1,300 price tag was equivalent to four years’ salary back then) and the Z8 never fully clicked with collectors until almost a decade past its demise. Now both much sought after, evoking their “historic” attraction might prove a little tricky if BMW does decide to produce the Skytop since they really only became famous after they were no longer available in the company’s showrooms.

Luckily for van Hooydonk, the Skytop is extremely attractive in its own right. According to the chief designer, the open-topped two-seater resembles “a meticulously crafted vehicle sculpture” with “flowing, sporty elegance.” Thankfully, it’s true, the Skytop is both elegant and athletic and, in person — though perhaps not in photographs — muscular.

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Hooydonk seems to allude that the Skytop owes more of its design lineage to the newer Z8. And, it’s true, the concept’s pronounced haunches, long flowing hood and rear seat cabin very much evoke the 2000 to 2004 aluminum-bodied roadster. Especially reminiscent, says Hooydonk, is the pronounced spline that extends from the hood, through the interior, to an aluminum ‘fin’ terminating in the trunk lid. This, says the chief designer, “emphasises the dynamic flow of the silhouette.”

What I think he’s trying to say is that, while the Skytop’s shape and silhouette do indeed mimic the Z8, it appears vastly more streamlined, almost as if the entire body was put through a high-speed abrasive blast such that even the slightest edge was smoothed to absolute perfection. My biggest question, in fact, is not whether BMW will produce Skytop, but whether they’ll be able to be faithful to the concept’s aesthetics.

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Certainly, the interior looks production ready. The instrument cluster looks lifted right out of a current BMW, the same angled digital speedo and tachometer gauges and roughly the same orientation of the minor information displays. Ditto the infotainment screen, hosting the company’s famed — or is that infamous — iDrive system.

The colour scheme, meanwhile, ensures a smooth transition from exterior to interior, regardless of whether the roof — comprised of two removable parts that can be stowed in a compartment in the trunk — is open or closed. In the rear, the reddish-brown roof flows into the muted silver — with something called a “chrome shadow effect — of the exterior paintwork. The leather-finished sport bar behind the reddish-brown seats combines with flying-buttress B-pillars that evoke a different company’s grand touring legacy and a fully retractable rear window.

And one more correlation with the Z8. The Skytop Concept is not only powered by a V8, but an M-massaged V8; in this case, the 617-horsepower, 4.4-litre M TwinPower Turbo V8 from the BMW M8 Competition. Maybe this thing will get produced.