BMW i8 review

The first challenge is getting in. The wing doors (frameless on the roadster) mean you have to duck, and the high sill means you have to scrunch your legs up to lift over. The swing design and high sills also rule out pockets or cup-holders in the doors. But hey, you don’t buy this car if you aren’t prepared to pay a small price for drama.

Visibility is a bit of an issue too. The screen pillars lie back and close, so in tight bends or roundabouts you’re rocking in your seat, switching between looking through the windscreen and the side windows. The Roadster’s rear humps turn diagonal reversing into a nightmare. There’s no rear camera either - only sensors, albeit good ones.

It feels like a sports-car in there. You sit low and snug in terrific seats. The materials are up to the stiff asking price, and the control and switchgear ergonomics are as sound as a BMW’s always have to be. Its also stylish and fashion-forward, if not as outright futuristic as the outside (to manage that it’d probably need a joystick instead of a steering wheel).

The Coupe has small seats in the back. They’re bigger than a 911’s plus-two jobs, but even so you’ll use them for luggage only. The rear boot is small but useable. The boot is effectively smaller in the Roadster because you can’t load it up to glass hatch height, but the rear seats have gone so there’s a dedicated shelf for a pair of overhead-locker-sized bags.

Superb cockpit aero results from this attention to detail. You can comfortably drive the Roadster with little turbulence at 60mph with the windows down, and windows-up go way beyond that.

The roof drops or raises in 15 seconds flat, at up to 30mph. When it’s up, you’ve got refinement almost up to the Coupe’s standard.