The autoTRADER.ca Find of the Week is a big German tourer from the glory days when cars were still analogue. When real drivers could get 12 cylinders and three pedals. When a cellular phone was a big deal, which was about the size of a microwave. It's a 1993 BMW 850i. With a six-speed stick.
BMW has just brought the 8 Series back with a big grand tourer that's probably not as big as you think it is. Long, low, and sleek, it's powered by a twin-turbo V8 and has computers that control just about every facet of every operation of the vehicle. But let's step back and take a look at the car that originally wore the 8 on the decklid, shall we? A car that was just as high tech when it launched, but today is delightfully analogue. It has the same 850 badge, and the same mission, but the cars couldn't be much more different if they tried.
In the excess of the mid-1980s, BMW decided that there was room in the lineup atop the 6 Series coupe. A car that would be the two-door equivalent of the 7. But better. A car aimed firmly at the Mercedes-Benz S-Class coupes that had been dominating the executive grand tourer space.
The car was launched at the Frankfurt Auto Show in 1989. Long, sleek, and large with obviously BMW styling and pop-up headlights. Roll the windows down and the long doors framed a pillarless profile. It's hard to design anything that doesn't look good without a B-pillar spoiling the view. That skin was one of the first to be designed using the help of a computer, which lead to it cutting through the air with impressive sharpness. The drag coefficient of 0.29 is excellent, even by today's standards.
This was BMW's flagship, meaning lots of new tech, at least by 1990s standards. It offered features like a drive-by-wire throttle and a CAN bus communication system, traction and stability control - something that wouldn't arrive to other cars for a decade and would take 20 years to become standard across the board.
Under the hood, a few different engines were available over the years. For those looking to keep the $100,000 price tag from climbing even higher, there was a 4.0L V8 in the 840Ci. But if you wanted to be top dog and add a lot more grand to your touring, then you stepped up to the 850Ci. 5.0 litres of displacement across 12-cylinders. 296 hp and 332 lb-ft of torque in one of the smoothest engine configurations possible. A variant of this engine would go on to shove the McLaren F1 well past 320 km/h.
While this was a high-tech, high-dollar machine, BMW still shared some components with this car among the rest of its lineup. The V12 was essentially two inline sixes sharing a crank. To that end, it had two engine computers, one for each bank of cylinders. Rumour had it that the car could run, albeit more roughly and on reduced power, on just one bank if there was a fault with the other side.
As a flagship, it was never destined to be a huge seller. In North America from 1990 to 1997, it sold just over 7,000 units, with just over 31,000 sold globally when production ended in 1999. Records have just 311 coming to Canada throughout the car's run.
While the 840 offered a five-speed automatic, and the 850 a four-speed (to handle the extra torque), the 850Ci came with an extra party trick. You could specify it with a six-speed manual gearbox. Said to be the first 12-cylinder six-speed car ever sold. It was extremely rare compared with the automatic, especially in North America, but it made the big GT even more engaging.
Our autoTRADER.ca Find of the Week is one of those very rare six-speed manual, V12-powered 850Ci models. This one is for sale in Oakville, ON. The seller says it's had just two owners since rolling out of the showroom way back in 1993.
The car still looks as graceful as the day it was first shown. This one has done a whole lot of grand touring, racking up more than 300,000 km on the odometer. But the photos show a car that still looks stunning inside and out, even if there's been some wear over the years. And it even has that classic 1990s-spec cell phone attached to the armrest. With a tape deck in the dash and a CD changer in the trunk. Blast that Will Smith track, even if he did take some liberties with the car's name to fit the rhyme scheme. If you're looking for a modern classic GT that offers four cylinders and one pedal more than most, this might be exactly what you're looking for.
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