In one of my recent columns I discussed the merits of various sports cars and I denigrated the Z3 a bit. Not because it’s a bad car (it’s not) but because in BMW speak, the Z stands for or ‘future.’ In the case of the Z1, that epitaph was genuinely true – plastic composite construction, the first iteration of the Z rear axle and so on. Fearsomely expensive to build and about the same cost as a Porsche 911 to buy, it was a ‘look what we can do’ moment. In contrast, the Z3 was the money-maker, built to be a big seller. And it did indeed fly out of the door – in the end it was the second best-selling small
