Price, Specs & Which to Buy Paul Tan's Automotive News BMW Z4 vs Volkswagen Touareg No longer on sale — shown for reference The Touareg has a 65% bigger boot, the Touareg is 24% more powerful, while the Touareg is about 19% cheaper. Weigh that against…
BMW's roadsters have always been a little bit of fun in a sensible company's lineup. The Z3 of the mid-1990s, which got a famous product-placement role in a James Bond film, gave way to the first Z4 in 2002, a sharp-edged two-seater with a long hood and the driver sitting almost on the rear axle. A folding-hardtop generation followed, trading some purity for year-round comfort, before the current soft-top car arrived in 2018.
That latest Z4 was developed alongside the Toyota GR Supra, sharing its platform and engines and built under contract by Magna Steyr in Austria. Its turbocharged six-cylinder version, the M40i, is genuinely quick, and in a nod to purists BMW later added a six-speed manual, which reviewers praised as one of the best gearboxes in the business. Critics have long said the Z4 lacks the delicacy of a Porsche Boxster or the purity of a Mazda MX-5, but it has always been a fine long-distance open-top cruiser.
Two-seat roadsters are a shrinking business, and the current Z4 has reached the end of its run, with special editions marking its departure. Its story continues in unexpected ways: the Bovensiepen Spider, a Z4-based roadster from the Alpina founding family, adds more power and luxury at a much higher price. This page follows the Z4's farewell, the coachbuilt spinoffs, used-market values and any hint of a future BMW sports car.
BMW's two-seat roadster and Toyota Supra cousin, with a late manual option, a farewell run and a coachbuilt Bovensiepen Spider afterlife.
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