BMW Z4 review

Six cylinders. Those two words take you a long way into the appeal of the M40i. It’s 2025 and we’ve now driven the biggest engined Z4 in both manual and auto form, so here goes it…

I need to know about the manual!

Of course you do. The Handschalter Pack will tip the asking price for a Z4 to the wrong side of the £60k mark, and it’s not actually the greatest manual shift ever to appear in a sports car. The lever itself is well positioned, and the throw is short and sweet, but there’s that slight rubbery feel that plagues most manual BMWs and the pedals are offset slightly to the right as if the whole thing was an afterthought. *Cough* it was.

And yet, the addition of a manual makes the Z4 so much more engaging compared to the standard eight-speed auto. It slows down your progress, rev-matches for you on downshifts should you so desire, and it allows you to connect with the car like you couldn’t with an auto Z4.

It also means you’ll use more of the revs and work the engine harder. The turbocharged 3.0-litre only offers peak power between 5,000rpm and its 6,500rpm redline, so it rewards those who hang onto gears. The Handschalter retains the full 369lb ft of torque too and only gives away a tenth of a second to the auto in the 0-62mph sprint. What an engine. It doesn’t have the motorsport-spec chunter of a Porsche flat-six, but it’s got the grunt of an All Blacks prop.

How’s the rest of the driving experience?

When you enjoy the engine's generosity, the chassis can cope. If you spec the Handschalter Pack, you get retuned adaptive dampers, a reinforced anti-roll bar clamp up front and bespoke auxiliary springs all round. There’s also refined steering, traction control and a recalibrated M Sport rear diff all to suit the manual ‘box. The goal was apparently to “achieve sharper handling characteristics that will be appreciated by driving purists” and there’s no doubt that this is the best G29 yet.

As promised, there's enormous grip, and the suspension keeps a vigilant eye on body roll and float without being overly firm. The steering is high geared – gets even more so on lock too – but it acts intuitively so you can always aim the car with lovely accuracy, and even small efforts will thread it into a tight bend with the immense forces those tyres can generate.

Only thing is, the steering doesn't bring back a whole big lot of sensation from the front wheels. That job is left up to the back end. You feel the diff working as you lean onto the power, the rear half of the Z4 crouching down and neatly holding onto the edge of traction as it bleeds out of a bend.

Is it comfortable?

The Z4 M40i has adaptive dampers, so full-on recreational driving isn't its only happy place. Even in the sport mode, where you get clearly sharper turn-in, the dampers allow the suspension to relax a certain amount on the straights. In comfort mode, things really become remarkably supple, rounding off most of what a broken surface throws at it.

So, the Z4's chassis relaxes nicely into commuting or long-haul work. And while you're at it, the driver aids and headlamps are all you'd expect from modern German premium.

What about the four-cylinder engines?

First thing to note is that the sDrive20i misses out on the adaptive suspension and big wheels of the M40i as standard. They can be added back in as part of the £2,050 M Sport Pro pack though, so both visually and dynamically, it can be prepped to do a decent impression of its bigger brother.

It won’t quite be able to match its keenness off the line, however. The four-pot sDrive20i, which can only be combined with the eight-speed auto gearbox remember, hits 62mph from a standstill in 6.6 seconds and tops out at 149mph. It is 115kg lighter than the straight-six though, so it feels more agile and turns in neatly. Shame there’s not really enough power to raise the rear axle from its slumber, though, and it makes a keen, raucous noise that’d be quite appealing in a quick four-cylinder hatch. But which is arguably a touch incongruous coming out of a drop-top with such a long bonnet.

The four-cylinder Z4 is rated at 39.8mpg and 161g/km of CO2, but you’re not buying a Z4 for the fuel economy so pick the six-cylinder manual with its 32.5mpg and 197g/km. On a wet and windy day with country roads, motorways and town driving all in the mix, we actually saw 32.8mpg from a car equipped with the Handschalter Pack.