How To Have Fun With Your Top Off!

BMW’s brand new 8 Series convertible is the ideal companion on the brilliant hill roads of the Algarve region, in Portugal.

- Kushan Mitra

The first thing you realise when you see a BMW 8 Series in the flesh for the first time, particularly with its roof down, is that the German company seems to have rediscovered its ability to design good looking cars all over again. This is a pretty car, and this is a very pretty part of the world, but before we delve into the merits (or otherwise) of the 8 Series and of Algarve, a quick primer on BMW’s highest number, and BMW’s latest numbering system.

A long time ago, a plucky Bavarian manufacturer, famous for its aircraft engines that powered parts of the German war machine, was in ruins after WWII, and the only thing they could make was a one-door car. No, really - it was called the Isetta, and it had a far less complicated mechanism than the 8 Series’ cabriolet roof (the door opened up from the front, in case you were wondering). The Isetta stabilised the company long enough for it to develop a nice, small, sporty rear-wheel-drive sedan, which it called the 3 Series. Then it made a slightly bigger sedan, which it called the 5 Series - and then an even bigger sedan, the kind of car that dictators and monopolists alike love, called the 7 Series. The Indian Prime Minister uses one of those, in case you wanted to know.

And that is the way the BMW universe was for 30 years. Sure, there was a side project making a sports car, the M1, which, while very good looking, had a small production run. But in developing that car, the Bavarians had employed some mad scientists, who needed something to do, and they were let loose on the regular sedans. You thus got the M3 and the M5, for several generations now the very definition of cars with split personalities. I do not want to make light of the condition, but if you drive a modern M3 or M5 you will know what I am on about.