• Three engine options
• Straight-six petrol or two V8s
• Eight-speed auto as standard

Huge performance comes as standard with the 8 Series Convertible. There are three engines on offer – they’re all petrol and badged 840i, M850i and M8.

The ‘entry-level’ 840i feels anything but. It has 333hp, sent through the rear wheels and good for a 0-62mph sprint of 5.5 seconds. It feels muscular, sounds good and suits the car well. It’s satisfyingly drivable at all speeds, with plenty of low-down torque allowing you to gather pace smoothly, and paired to a smooth-shifting eight-speed automatic.

If you want more performance, you can opt for one of the two V8 models. The lesser of these is badged M850i – BMW parlance for a sort of halfway stepping stone to a full-fat M car. Its 4.4-litre V8 pushes out 530hp to all four wheels. It’ll do 0-62 in 4.1 seconds. The big daddy of the trio is the M8 Competition, with a staggering 625hp and a 0-62mph sprint of 3.3 seconds.

16

All models are limited to 155mph top speed, but as an option you can get a driver’s pack on the M8 which raises this to 190mph. This is supercar-baiting performance for sure. The M8 also gets an upgrade to the cooling and oil systems as well as a quicker gearbox.

Handling

• Promises both luxury and engagement
• 8 Series is a very heavy car, though
• Four-wheel steering an interesting addition

With such accomplished driver-focused rivals as the Porsche 911, the 8 Series Convertible has to offer a tricky combo of driver enjoyment and luxury. It does so with a mighty array of active chassis technology which go some way to masking the 8 Series’ sheer size and weight.

Both V8 variants come with xDrive all-wheel drive to help improve traction, adaptive suspension to smooth out the ride or firm up the handling depending on what’s needed, and even rear-wheel steering. This has dual benefits – it makes the car more stable on the motorway, but it also enables it to shrink somewhat in town driving or on tight roads where the rear will pivot around with more mobility than most cars of a similar size. It can be disconcerting, though, and doesn’t feel as fluid as the best systems on Mercedes models.

16

A fair amount of shoring up has obviously added weight – the heaviest M8 Competition model is almost two tons – but this combined with lots of carbon fibre in the construction means the 8 Series feels pretty stiff and doesn’t suffer from the scuttle shake of some convertibles.

The 8 Series Convertible isn’t as sharp as the smaller, more focused Mercedes SL, nor is it as satisfying to drive as the Porsche 911. But it’s a better cruiser than either.