We’ve seen car interiors that have used wood, leather and carbon fiber. Bentley even offered stone veneers. But meteorite? Actual meteorite? Yes, the BMW M850i Night Sky Edition is decorated with this other-worldly material.
Let’s just get all the space puns out of the way now, shall we? This special edition is out of this world. When it comes to BMW Individual’s creations, the sky’s the limit. It has you looking starry-eyed. You want to (meteor) shower BMW with praise for making it and you want to comet to buy it.
There, done. Now, let’s talk about this astonishing creation. It uses material from the Muonionalusta meteorite, formed some 4,570 million years ago. The unique geometric pattern of this material is known as Widmanstätten patterning and only occurs naturally in space objects like meteorites.
The unmistakable patterning of the space object can be seen on the front spoiler, mirrors, vents and brake discs although these parts aren’t hewn from the meteorite. Continuing with the intergalactic theme, the body is painted in two-tone black and metallic San Marino Blue. The blue was hand-painted in graduated coats atop the black base, the effect intended to be reminiscent of twilight.
Opening the doors and stepping over the emblazoned and meteorite-decorated sill plates, you’ll find an avant garde interior with a bevy of textures and patterns. The Merino leather seats, like the exterior parts, replicate the Widmanstätten pattern of the meteorite material and are finished in three different tones: Opal White, Midnight Blue and Silver.
A perforated backlit armrest is reminiscent of the night sky, a similar effect to that used by Rolls-Royce on their Starlight Headliner.
Finally, the pièce de résistance: more than 21 ounces of real meteorite material decorates the center console, start/stop button, iDrive controller and the gearshift.
If you’re completely sold on the meteorite idea, I’m afraid to say you’re out of luck as the M850i Night Sky is a one-off. I know, that probably asteroid you to read. Ok, I had one more pun. Dad jokes aside, this is one utterly distinctive and memorable vehicle. We’ve seen wood, leather, carbon fiber, stone and meteorite now. What on Earth (or beyond Earth) is next?
A googlephonic stereo with a moonrock needle? It’s okay for a car stereo….
For. The. Love. Of. God. If there had been anyone here wondering if BMW had actually jumped the shark, now all doubt has been vanquished. Gone is the engineer-speak of spring rates and references to the Brinnell hardness test results of suspension mounts. Actually, I just made these up, but they are plausible brag-points for something that claims to be a premium road car.
Nope, nope, nope. We are now using shit from outer space to help shill cars. “Hey gorgeous, wanna see my BMW Night Sky Edition? It uses real meteorite in the interior. Let me help you off with those.”
Perhaps the next frontier is material from deep under the Earth’s crust. The BMW Magma Edition? The Middle Earth Edition? The Fires Of Hell Edition? They will have to go deep because once SpaceX gets up and running, Tesla will surely get all the really good stuff. I just can’t wait.
Please remember that the buying public does not care about driving. They don’t understand driving dynamics, along quality in engineering and build, was what used to define a luxury car. Now, it is all down to “it costs more”. Why is a BMW a good car? It costs more. Why do you want a Mercedes? It costs more.Why did you buy an Escalade but not a Tahoe? It costs more.
Luxury marques could easily just call themselves Couture houses and it would be more apt. They are selling incredibly expensive items that are currently in fashion. They are not worried about the engineering, just the materials used to justify expense. If they covered it in diamonds, someone would buy one.
Enthusiasts are a dying breed. Perhaps we should give a nod to the current state of affairs by calling new devotees of automobiles Motoristas. You know, like a fashionista, only with cars.
JFrank, to be frank, I don’t think enthusiasts have died off as much as you think. That is to say, they’ve always represented a distinct minority, anyway.
When talking about luxury and style, what’s the difference between meteorite trim and tail fins, chrome, and three-tone paintjobs? What’s the difference between Nappa leather and Virtual Cockpit vs. power windows and Twilight Sentinel? There have always been plenty of people who want the most fashionable, exclusive suit or handbag they can afford, just as they want the most fashionable, exclusive car they can afford.
There were plenty of people buying Benzes and BMWs in the 1970s and 1980s who gave not one whit about said cars’ driving dynamics. But those cars were expensive and in style so that was what a lot of buyers gravitated towards. I think it’s unwise to think enthusiasts are a dying breed because one doesn’t “get” current luxury car trends.
Really what it is is the car enthusiast is occasionally fashionable. In BMW’s ascent the masses looked up to Paul Newman and Steve McQueen types as icons, who they moonlighted in racing in their spare time. I’d go so far to say the vast majority of original buyers of GTOs and 2002 BMWs weren’t necessarily the enthusiasts as we picture, but regular folk who just wanted part in the trend and without hesitation moved to the next one despite the giant disparity (Supercars to broughams? Broughams to sport sedans?? Sport sedans to SUVs???).
I agree, enthusiasts haven’t gone anywhere, there’s simply far more avenues for us to indulge on than in the past and most of them aren’t in dealer showrooms. Brand new car sales isn’t an even remotely indicative measure of their numbers. There’s no shortage of car centered channels on YouTube, social media pages, various blogs and video games to suggest to me we’re even a remotely dieing breed, only that 100 years of automobile production in all shapes, sizes and origin give us more to choose to drool over than say 60s USA where there were basically 3ish choices, that were all pretty similar to each other, and one main form of motorsport to indulge in.
Whoa, easy, J.P. It’s just a one-off. They haven’t even said if they’ll be selling it.
Pretty much every brand has done an outlandish one-off or concept car at some point, even those with enthusiast bona fides. I don’t think it’s fair to single out this as the shark-jumping point of BMW or even say that this one-off is reflective of where BMW is today as a whole.
Criticism of BMW for softening their cars is fair (although buyers haven’t really cared) but they’re still selling plenty of enthusiast-focused stuff and advertising their capability. See: new Z4, M5, etc.
I certainly mean no reflection on you for covering this development here, Will. But. There has to be a line at which a cool, exclusive idea becomes a parody of itself. In the 50s that line might have been crossed when Kaiser upholstered a car in polar bear fur. (Which would have been a great air conditioning tie-in, had it been an available feature). In 2019 that point is when cuttings from a friggin’ meteorite is used as awe-inspiring car-jewelry designed to appeal to the person who simply has everything else in this world awash in bespoken artisan-ness. I am sorry, I cannot even think about this car without busting out laughing.
I just hope this won’t lead BMW into Docker Daimler territory.
Ahh, you guys crack me up. I have nothing to add 🙂 🙂 🙂
Back in the space race days automobiles were designed to give the (aesthetic)feeling of being a personal spaceship. Now here in 2019, or as it was known back in the day, *the future*, the best we can aspire to in cars are the equivelants to grade school science fair exhibitions, shining a light through holes in black construction paper and passing around a piece of a rock.
Meteorites aside, BMW did a fine job at directly tracing over a 2015 Mustang for this car.
From the biblical view space and earth are not billions of years old.
Goals
Carleton Spencer’s ghost is smiling! He got close with Dinosaur-patterned vinyl; he’d certainly appreciate meteorite patterns.
That paint job probably cost as much as a well equipped 3 Series.
The really scary part is if they actually built this thing there would be people lined up around the block to buy it.
The worst part is the continued non-use of cloth seats. This would’ve been the perfect package to bring back metallic-threaded mouse fur on.
The Ultimate Driving Machine is now officially defunct. BTW, never noticed the Mustang profile before, thanks XR7Matt for pointing that out, another nail in the BMW coffin. Though one could argue that BMW copied the Corvair 50+ years ago, so all is fair.
Yup, one one-off show car for BMW Individual completely negates the entire M performance line, the new Z4 roadster, etc…
I will say I was disappointed to hear how soft recent BMWs had become but I’ve been delighted by news the new 3-Series has returned to form. I don’t think BMW has given up on Ultimate Driving Machine status but, even if they had, buyers sure didn’t seem to care. Has BMW lost any prestige in the past few years because of slightly softer suspension tuning? Doubtful.
I think M and AMG for Mercedes definitely got diluted simply because the badges were so strategically RARE in the true heyday of the brands, now it seems like every third BMW or ‘Benz I see wears the badge, and in many cases the cars dont elicit that homologation style racecar for the street vibe on the vehicles it’s applied to, even with strong performance. It just seems like a next up trim level, like a Camry SE to a XSE.
Well, first I wouldn’t say it’s defunct because of a one-off show car. This does not negate the terrifyingly capable M4, or any other BMW M car, or the new 3 series, or any other of BMW’s most recent accomplishments.
Second, it doesn’t so much look like a Mustang as much as it share design cues with the Mustang. Europeans prefer a more “modern” styled car. The current Mustang was styled to appeal to Europeans, in anticipation of the Mustang’s entry into that market. Moreover, BMW doesn’t often make radical leaps in styling, which means you can observe evolution in style. The basic profile of the 850 can be seen in the E63 6 Series, dating back to the early 2000’s. It’s not that one stole from the other, it’s that they are a product of similar age.
I could imagine Klaus Nomi driving this car.
Many thumbs up for the Klaus Nomi reference
This looks like a Mustang to me.
This actually makes me sad. Yes, I know it’s a show car, and yes BMW Individual has existed for years and is often over the top. But in my opinion this really strays from what a focused BMW should be about, even in a glitzy upper echelon coupe. Rolls-Royce perhaps, but BMW? Just wrong on so many levels, and not helped by the cheesy photography resembling something Nissan would have done in the 1980s….
As a long-term loyal BMW fan/owner, I’m sad to say my passion for the brand has thoroughly waned, at least for now. Today’s too common, flashy, gizmo laden, leaden-driving, electronically-detached, badge-only status symbols have strayed too far from BMW’s roots and just don’t excite or interest me at all, including their special editions. That’s a far cry from the days when I was a happy and frequent customer, lusting after almost anything they put out, from Alpinas to 1-Series.
Call me crazy, but a potentially temperamental Italian temptress beckons to fill the void of fun-to-drive, character laden products specifically designed for select audiences, territory where BMW once reigned supreme. Our next car is more likely to feature a 4-leaf clover badge rather than a blue-and-white propeller….
Ah, yes – the Rolls-Royce Celestial comes to mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpymtht9RRg
A long journey from my first BMW experience: a ride in my friend’s new 1972 2002.
Kudos to BMW for creativity and originality. While using slivers of meteorite does nothing to entice or even excite me, it’s definitely a unique concept.
But in the big scheme of things it’s just a gimmick to get attention. Call it a success because it’s captured attention, even if it’s been to mixed reviews here.
Actually, I think it’s kinda cool. I mean, everything else has been done. I have to wonder thought how much the stone trim adds to the weight. I could see this on a Rolls or a Mercedes perhaps, but it just doesn’t gel with my concept of what a BMW is. Do I need realignment, or does BMW?
The space theme is interesting, but unless it comes with an authentic warp drive and photon torpedoes, count me out.
It’s Fresh! NOT…
The parallels to this song are…many.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NChc__dH3jA