BMW Concept Coupé Mille Miglia 2006: First Look

Motoring Channel Staff - 12/May/2006

Celebrating it's involvement and past victories in the famous Mille Miglia historic rally in Italy, named for it's 1000 mile distance, BMW has revealed a gob smacking concept car that runs on the Z4 M Coupe's underpinnings and features a thoroughly retro body shell.

The BMW Concept Coupe Mille Miglia 2006 harks back to the classic BMW 328 Mille Miglia Touring Coupe of the late 1930s, and which went on to win the Mille Miglia event in 1940 and again in the historic section in 2004 (Mille Miglia storica).

The German marque concedes that its flamboyant Concept Coupé will never win a race, but that this was never the vehicle's mission. The German automaker explains that the 2-seater is a symbol for motor sports, racing success and the brand and spirit that have moved the engineers and drivers to great achievements for decades.

In other words, it's a fantastical concept vehicle designed to pay homage to the Mille Miglia winners of yesteryear, while proving that the marque can be severely creative, and moreover that the model could even represent future design cues that will be incorporated into future BMW vehicles.

The Munich-based automaker insists that with this unique concept study, the developers and designers in the BMW Group are showing how traditional values, modern expertise and visions can be unified into a fascinating vehicle. 

Obviously, the 'traditional values' comment concerns the retro styling of the vehicle (20-inch wheels shod with 245/40 tyres notwithstanding), whose entire body is made out of light weight, structurally sound and expensive carbon-fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP). 

The prototypical vehicle features a vertically slim, very un-BMW grille up front shadowed by a pair of large round headlight elements. These"eyes" as BMW calls them are reminiscent of the circular headlamps used in the classic BMW 328, and are comprised of LEDs.

Interestingly, the Concept Coupé improves its body's rigidity by not including doors, and rather than the driver having to squeeze in through a window hole, the entire cockpit section swings up to allow ingress, like a classic Spitfire aeroplane. 

From the long engine bonnet and the generously sweeping front wheel housings through the recessed greenhouse with its divided windscreen up to the rear haunches that arch over the rear wheels (covering them completely, you'll note), the streamlined body of the racing sport legend has been completely reabsorbed in the BMW Concept Coupé.

The rear section of the concept study is just as provocative as the front, distinguished by the LED brake light element that strafes across the rear in a gentle diagonal curve, suggesting that the designers were allowed free reign to visualise their more unorthodox ideas. 

The character and style of the 20th century BMW 328 Coupé upon which this dazzling new concept is based has stood the test of time, and the car driven to victory in 1940 by Fritz Huschke von Hanstein and Walter Bäumer was no slow poke either, and spare a thought for the drivers - they didn't have half as many occupant protections that we take for granted today. The car 1940 328 Coupé set a speed record in what was one of the most gruelling races in the world more than 70 years ago, with an average speed of 166.7km/h having never been broken. 

The modern interpretation of the classic racecar was therefore given a suitably powerful engine. The original 328 Coupé racecar featured a 1971cc (2.0-litre) inline 6-cylinder engine outputting 136PS, or about 100kW, which at the time was quite a feat, and is still seen as proof of the excellent skills of the BMW engineers of yore, says the German marque. 

Today, BMW's Concept Coupé also features an inline 6-cylinder engine, but with 70 years of advancement in the field of combustion engines the 3246cc (3.2-litre) borrowed from the Z4 M Coupe makes quite a bit more power. 

It generates 252kW, which is 343PS, thanks to it's high rev ceiling, and modifications made to the intake and exhaust system give the concept vehicle an engine sound suited to motor racing applications. 

A muffled rumble at idle already signals that kind of expectant impatience that the BMW Concept Coupé would also radiate optically at the starting line of a racetrack. At 4900rpm, exactly the engine speed where the maximum torque of 365Nm is reached, the raw sounds of the six-cylinder engine has already intensified to a fanfare-like sound experience.

The Mille Miglia Race

The Mille Miglia has lost none of its fascination, also as a bridge between the traditional and modern automobile age. Once the toughest automobile road race in the world, it attracts thousands of motor sports fans to northern Italy year after year. In the towns and cities along the route between Brescia and Rome, they celebrate automobile history in its most exclusive form.

The fascinating moments of the Mille Miglia remain stuck in the memories of many automobile enthusiasts and they can be experienced once again today in the Mille Miglia storica. In 1977, exactly a half century after the first Mille Miglia, a new version of the legendary race was staged for the first time. Meanwhile, it is completed every year in May in historic sites as a reliability and consistency run. 

The chase for best times has turned into a demonstration of automobile-engineering art stretching over three days and attracting hundreds of thousands of spectators to the roadsides. All vehicle models that participated in the classic Mille Miglia at least once between 1927 and 1957 are permitted to start. Of course, the BMW 328 and other vehicles such as the BMW Isetta and BMW 507, two models deployed in the '50s in private races, also take part.

For fans of classical automobiles, today the Mille Miglia has an importance comparable to the significance of the original races for the motor sports scene back then. The Mille Miglia storica pays homage to the design engineers and their works, which continue to inspire professionals and lay persons even today. Some 375 vehicles have been approved to start in the Mille Miglia 2006 and 22 of them bear the white-blue BMW logo.