BMW Z4 review

It doesn’t seem all that long ago you could pick up a posh two-seat German roadster for around the £30,000 mark. The Z4 now starts at a hefty £45,830 for the 2.0-litre four-cylinder sDrive20i. Still, that’s four-pot hot hatch money these days so bonkers pricing isn’t just confined to roofless motoring.

Standard kit in the UK includes an M Aerodynamics package, M spec 18-inch alloy wheels, Alpine White paint, LED lights, heated seats, a leather steering wheel and a black roof. Black leather seats are standard too, although it’s free to swap to ‘Ivory’, ‘Cognac’ or ‘Magma Red’. This is excellent news. It’s a sports car so go wild with the colours. 

A Driving Assistant Pack is £945 and includes active cruise control plus a load of active safety tech, and for the same money you can also have a Visibility Pack with adaptive LED headlights and a high-beam assist. The £1,575 Comfort Pack adds a heated steering wheel and electric seats, while the Technology Pack is £1,890 and adds a head-up display, wireless phone charging, a Harman Kardon surround sound system and BMW’s parking assistant tech.

And finally there’s the M Sport Pro package with its darkened exterior trim, adaptive suspension, blue brake calipers and seatbelts with M stitching. Oh dear. Plenty of opportunity to spend your hard-earned cash on the configurator, then.  

Wanting a proper six-cylinder Z4? Pricing for the M40i kicks off at £58,180 with the eight-speed auto, while the Handschalter Pack adds an extra £5,325 for the manual gearbox. At that price the Handschalter Pack actually seems like decent value with all of the chassis updates it brings. Oh, and it also includes 19/20-inch split front/rear wheels. Very cool.

Straight-six Z4s get all the same standard kit as the four-pots, plus you don’t have to pay any extra for metallic paints and 19-inch wheels are included. A grey roof is still a £275 box to tick, while the Comfort Pack is now just £525 and just adds keyless entry and a heated steering wheel as the electric seats are standard on the M40i. All of the M Sport Pro bits are also included, alongside things like bigger brakes and the e-diff.