The BMW Z1 was an oddity right from the very beginning. See, it was essentially conceived as a testbed for clever technologies, wrapped up in the body of a funky two-seater sports car. In fact, the ‘Z’ stood for ‘zukunft’, which is German for ‘future’. Of course, its most distinctive feature was those retractable doors, although it was the plastic body panels that were arguably more innovative. Not only were they lightweight and deformable, but they could theoretically be replaced with different colours in a matter of minutes.
As cool as the Z1 was, BMW only shifted 8,000 of them between 1988 and 1991, which by the standards of a German car giant is pretty puny. Compare that to the near-300k Z3s sold between 1995 and 2002. Sure, the quirky looks probably played a part in its lacklustre customer reception, but a price tag of £37,000 (or over £100k today!) didn’t exactly help matters. However, slow sales didn’t put the tuners off and it wasn’t long before an Alpina version arrived with a beefier 2.7-litre engine. Hartge had a crack at it too, the results of which you see right here.
Admittedly, the modifications to the Z1 are pretty tame by Hartge standards. Like the Alpina car, Hartge’s take saw the displacement rise from 2.5- to 2.7-litres, the former using the same motor as the B3 2.7 while the latter used a bored-out version of the stock motor. There were a multitude of upgrades customers could choose from, too, including higher compression pistons and a remap. However, you weren’t required to chuck all the upgrades on at once, so while a fully-kitted out version produced somewhere in the region of 200hp, this particular model, which appears to have some options ticked and not others, has been dyno’d at 178hp - a modest uptick from the 170hp made by the standard engine.
Mind you, all the Hartge bits, from the engine upgrades to those larger wheels and side stripes, are just a small part of what makes this Z1’s story interesting. While the car wears Hartge branding, it was originally assembled by Japanese tuning legends Tommykaira: the firm behind crazy creations like this R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R and this (slightly less spectacular) M13 Micra AK12. The outfit served as Hartge’s distributor in Japan at the time, carrying out the conversion of this particular car in 1997. Its owner then brought the car to the UK a year later, and it’s remained in the country ever since.
It saw frequent use during its first decade in Britain, with the original owner racking up 30,000 miles before it was moved on to its next custodian in 2009. Four years later, it landed in the possession of a BMW collector, who stored the car for the best part of three years. It was then treated to an extensive restoration by Z1 specialist Ivor Dadswell in 2017, including the sourcing of those original wheels, reseating of most of the body panels and refurbing the door mechanism. More recently, it’s been treated to a full service and wheel alignment, and has been sparingly used with just 34k miles (displayed as 55k kilometres) on the clock.
An incredible mashup of two cult tuning legends, and an exceptionally rare sight anywhere in the world, let alone here in Britain. This makes the £55,000 asking price slightly more understandable, even if it’s a good £15k more than the only other example currently available on PH (albeit with nearly double the mileage). If, however, you prefer your Hartge with proper doors and more grunt, this E36 M3 Evo tuned by the firm is available for £6k less.
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