The Boldmen CR4 Makes A BMW Z4 Look Boring, But Is It Worth $235,000?

Forget the BMW Z4 or Porsche Boxster, if you really want to stand out in your roadster, you need a Boldmen CR4. As luck would have it, a few of these rare two-seaters are starting to hit the used market, costing around $235,000 (£197,000). So what exactly is the CR4?

Unveiled in 2021, it’s the brainchild of Friedhelm Wiesmann (the man behind the low volume sports car manufacturer Wiesmann), Harald Käs and Michael Käs who includes Ruf and Alpina on his CV. The car takes the BMW Z4 M40i as its starting point, then the Boldmen team make some fairly far-reaching modifications. As for the name, ‘C’ means carbon, while ‘R’ is Roadster and ‘4’ represents the first number of its power output in metric horsepower.

You can still see the Z4 parent car in the CR4’s soft-top roof, mid-section and overall size, but a completely redesigned carbon fibre grille, bumpers and rear end make the Boldmen creation look more like Batman’s weekend car than the mainstream BMW roadster.

The CR4 is made even more distinctive thanks to new front and rear lights, which shroud individual round projector units, for a completely different look to the Z4 or the Toyota Supra which also uses the same platform. Quad exhaust pipes protrude from the rear, there’s a jutting lip spoiler and Boldmen has joined the trend of affixing its name across the boot.

Boldmen has modified the 3.0-litre turbocharged inline-six of the Z4 M40i to produce 397bhp. That’s a healthy increase over BMW’s official figure of 330bhp, cutting the 0-62mph time to a claimed 3.9 seconds, while its top speed is limited to 155mph.

Available in Germany, cars numbered five and six from a run of 30 are up for grabs via Mobile.de. The former has navy paintwork, a cream interior and grey alloy wheels, while car six is black, with silver wheels and a contrasting red and black interior. Both appear to feature the standard BMW instrument panel and iDrive infotainment setup, so should be easy to live with and keep maintained.

On paper you’re paying £200k for a BMW Z4 with some carbon bits and a tune-up, but buy a Boldmen CR4 and you’d be unlikely to ever see another. It’s hard to put a price on that kind of exclusivity.