Lost in Time: BMW Z18

Do you think that the first off-road BMW was X5? Ha ha ha …

1985 team of inventors BMW – Technik Gmbh – separated from the company. They were given complete creative freedom – do what you want. In nature, such isolation would have created some deep-sea worm with beak and four ears. Creation Technik, it must be said, were no less bizarre. Like you, for example, four-wheel drive convertible, resembling a racing boat and bike enduro?

1. Z18 was the first off-road BMW. He was introduced four years before the X5, in 1995. Unlike the X5 it was convertible, but off-road, and even pick-up, double or quadruple: under cover at the stern hid a number of seats.

2 Plastic body standing on a steel space frame, frame resembling a racing boat. Engineers said that the machine can “easily walk on the calm water.” Only about the depth is not specified.

3 Most innovative ideas went into oblivion together with the prototype. But the 4.4-liter engine is set to X5. The engineers then switched to C1 – a scooter with a roof and a seat belt, which even went into production.

4. Technik Gmbh still works, though under a different name. Now a team of about 100 people. We can thank them for the technology and for the EfficientDynamics hybrid supercar i8 …