With the sun shining brightly overhead, I zipped over town to pick up my good friend David Smith, who not so reluctantly offered himself as navigator for the day. It wasn't too hard to talk him into taking the day off work for a quick (literally) trip up to Whistler, the on this face as I pull up on this ravishing beauty saying it all. Soon we're on the road, dusting off a hot-rod '69 Camaro. As cool as we try to look, the grins plastered all over our indulgent faces make us appear more like dumb and dumber than James Bond, but do we care? Not. Dashing along the Upper Levels highway at speeds that I won't mention lest I incriminate myself, the Z8 feels rock solid, tracking with perfection. Down we sweep into a right-hander toward Horseshoe Bay, veering off just in time to meet the Sea to Sky highway, a twisting and undulating stretch of two-lane nirvana that is the ideal playing field for an athlete of such talents. The Z8's top-gear acceleration is simply amazing, allowing us to simply walk past lesser vehicles like their running on two-pistons.
BMW chose state of the art aluminum spaceframe construction, with aluminum structural panels and bodywork to keep weight to a minimum and maximize rigidity. The ultra-stiff result (23 Hz for torsional and 21 Hz for transverse loads) aids in the handling department. 'Slow to 30 km/h' signs, that precede hairpin turns, now seem preposterous as the roadster is capable of speeds exceeding four or even five times this recommended - er, I mean regulated limit. During high-speed cornering, the Z8 remains flat and composed with mild understeering characteristics. The power assisted rack and pinion steering is perfectly weighted, pointing the MacPherson-strut front suspension, encompassing split lower A-arms and an anti-roll bar mated to 245/45 R18 wheels, with precision. The multilink with anti-roll bar setup at the rear, fixed to massive 275/40 R18's, keeps the tail in place even during inanely aggressive maneuvers. When all common sense fails, BMW's dynamic stability control system kicks in to keep us in control and between the lines.