BMW Mille Miglia Concept, Cobalt Blue Metallic

The car this concept honours was a lesson in lightness. For the 1939 Le Mans 24 Hours, Carrozzeria Touring of Milan clothed a BMW 328 chassis in its Superleggera construction, a filigree tubular frame under a thin aluminium skin, bringing the race-ready coupé to just 780 kg. The following year the same car won the Mille Miglia outright. In 2006 BMW set its designers the equivalent task with modern materials. The Mille Miglia Concept's entire body was moulded in carbon-fibre reinforced plastic, and it had no conventional doors at all: fixed sidewalls saved weight and stiffened the structure, while the whole cockpit swung up to let the driver in. Underneath sat the running gear of the Z4 M Coupé.

This example is painted a rich cobalt blue metallic, saturated and bright, the flake strongest along the shoulders of the front wings. The cabin is light grey, with a silver dashboard and console, ribbed seats with black harness straps and a roll cage visible through the small rear window, and the gills behind the front wheels carry pale inserts. The split windscreen with its twin wipers, the carbon-patterned mirrors, the red tow eye and the red lamp strip crossing the tail are all carried through. The black plaque on its grey stitched base bears the BMW roundel and the word Limited. Built at 1:18.