Smit Vehicle Engineering Puts E92 BMW M3 GTS Engine Into Z4
Smit Vehicle Engineering stuffs a high reving V8 from the M3 GTS into a BMW Z4 body to create one of the best BMW restomods.
What would happen if you took James Bond’s BMW Z8, made it into a coupe, and gave it tons of extra power. This was the dream of two engineer brothers named Kaess and Willem Smit. They made their dreams a reality and Autocar YouTube channel is here to review one of the best BMW restomods.
Restomod Royalty
The video begins with a small montage of photos of the vehicle named the Smit Vehicle Engineering Oletha. Our host begins in a quite peculiar way by telling us to just be quiet and listen to which he presses the accelerator and smiles at the incredible symphony of roars and grumbles from the exhaust. He tells us that the car is a BMW Z4 base with a full carbon fibre body that resembles the BMW Z8 coupe that was never produced by BMW. Under the hood is a 4.4 litre BMW V8 typically found in the older M3 GTS’s and currently makes 448 hp and 341 ft-lbs of torque. It is essentially the BMW that BMW should have built according to our presenter.
It’s So Special
Our reviewer keeps using the word special continuously to describe the car. The sound of the car, the power, the drive, the “vintage-ness” of it all is just so special our host tells us. The car is currently in the prototype stage but orders for this beast of a car are around the $450,000 mark. Our host tells us that although the interior may have some slight creeks (it’s a prototype) he feels it is very solid on the road. He also tells us that the exterior has gotten many positive reactions with people claiming they would pay a million dollars for the car. However, he feels the stock interior from the Z4 interior may not be what all clients are looking for. In the defense of the brothers, he argues that BMW spent quite a lot of time and money making this interior work and if they were to add other aftermarket parts to the interior they might not be as good.
The Verdict
The final verdict according to our host then is this car is too angry to be a GT, not big enough to be a muscle car, too loud to be an everyday car, and too tame to be a track car. However, he would buy one because it is better than all of those put together. It is a special car because it is unlike anything else. He tells us he “likes it… really really likes it” and we certainly agree.
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