A London Driving School Is Offering Lessons In A BMW i8

Most of us learned to drive in a Fiesta or Corsa, maybe a Mini if you were just a little bit too image-conscious at the time. But learner drivers in London can now take lessons in a £105,500 BMW i8. What could go wrong?

Bill Plant Driving School has equipped the 357bhp hybrid with dual controls, which will allow an instructor to hit the anchors if someone should get carried away with the performance. Or misunderstand how steering works, or something else daft that learners tend to do early in their lessons. The special i8 even has a little L-plate-shod pyramid on top, for maximum weirdness.

The keen-eyed will have spotted an obvious disadvantage to the 155mph head-turner: the i8 is automatic, so even for punters happy to pay the £50 per hour for lessons in the i8, it can’t get you a manual driving licence on its own. It’s probably back to a Corsa, then, for that bit.

Driving lessons – or just an hour driving the car – are available to anyone with a valid UK full or provisional driving licence. For experienced drivers it’s a cheaper and more accessible way to get behind the wheel of an i8 when compared to supercar experience track days.