BMW Mille Miglia Concept, Champagne Gold Metallic

The Mille Miglia Concept had an unusually quiet start for a show car. BMW unveiled it in May 2006 on what it later called a flying visit to the Mille Miglia, presenting it at the start and finish in Brescia, home of the race its inspiration had won in 1940. It then dropped from view for a year, returning in April 2007 to the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este on Lake Como, where BMW gave it its first public showing, outside the competition, and named the BMW Museum as its next stop. The car it honours had the same air of rarity: the 328 Mille Miglia Touring Coupé, a one-off body by Touring of Milan, which won that 1940 race at a record 166.7 km/h.

This piece is finished in a champagne gold metallic, a warm, fine-grained gold that reads as pale bronze on the shaded flanks and almost cream along the bonnet. The cabin is light grey, with ribbed seats, black harness straps and a silver-finished dashboard and console, and the gills behind the front wheels carry pale inserts. The detail extends to the split windscreen, bonnet pins, frosted round headlamps, a red tow eye and the slim red lamp across the tail. Built at 1:18 and set on a grey stitched base, it carries a black plaque with the BMW roundel, reading 'Limited', one of 7.