BMW Mille Miglia Concept, Gunmetal Grey Metallic

Chris Bangle ran BMW design when the Mille Miglia Concept was conceived, and he pushed his team to treat the 328 Touring Coupé that won the 1940 Mille Miglia as a launch pad rather than a template. The old car's vocabulary is all present (the long bonnet, the low glasshouse with its divided windscreen, the buried rear wheels), but pressed into shapes no 1940 coachbuilder could have made. Even the method looked backwards to move forwards: the body was developed not in clay but in hand-worked plaster, before being scanned and refined in Munich. Built in 2006 on the running gear of the Z4 M Coupé, it remains one of the more daring shapes of the Bangle era.

This piece is finished in a gunmetal grey metallic with a coarse, bright flake, almost graphite in shadow and silver where the light catches the wings. Inside, the cabin is trimmed in red, with seats, steering wheel and door panels set against a silver dashboard and console and a roll cage behind. The red carries outside to the gill inserts behind the front wheels and answers the red lamp strip across the tail, while frosted round lamps, a mesh kidney grille and a red tow eye complete the nose. Built at 1:18, on a grey stitched base; the black plaque reads 'Limited', one of 7.