The Roly-Poly BMW 8 Series Looks Uncomfortable At The Nurburgring

The new BMW 8 Series has been spotted gently trundling around the Nurburgring as part of its development. The test mule, in full camouflage like the M8 we saw recently, can be seen navigating the famous German circuit some way short of full-tilt but rolling around like it’s on stormy seas.

There’s a tiny bit of tyre squeal at one point in the footage, but this looks more like eight-tenths handling tuning more than on-limit torture testing. The engineers might be trying to tweak the flagship coupe’s behaviour in what will inevitably be its Comfort and/or Comfort+ modes.

We know from experience with the latest 7 Series that BMW’s biggest platform is handy when it comes to the twisty bits, so we’d expect the 8 Series to make a good fist of the ‘Ring when BMW finally asks it to.

From what we can see, the headlight design on the test car isn’t quite as narrow or aggressive as those of the beautiful concept, and while the disguise might be hiding it deliberately, the front end is nowhere near as shapely as it is on the preview shots.

The silhouette looks like a cross between those of the Rolls-Royce Wraith and the Nissan 370Z, depending on which angle you’re seeing it from. The incredibly acute angle of the roof line won’t be practical, but the boot of the four-seat coupe could be big, potentially making it 2018’s definitive car in which to, err, show up in at the golf club.