Our first impression of the BMW Z3 is that it provides all the fun of a Mazda Miata, but it's more substantial. It's a real car. It's a little bigger, and it's somewhat heavier. In short, you don't feel like you're quite as likely to get killed in it, although you'll still feel pretty vulnerable out on the highway when trucks pass you (or, more likely, you pass them.)
We found it to be a refreshing car. Go out on a summer night with the top down and drive around. You'll feel renewed. It's one of the few cars to come our way recently that was truly fun and different. We continually looked forward to driving this car. We didn't get bored with it. It looks great, it handles great, it sounds great. In a perfect world, we thought, the government would buy one of these for every American citizen as a second car. (Remind us to put that on the platform for our 2000 presidential race.)
Unfortunately, BMW decided to do away with the very adequate four-cylinder, 1.9-liter engine that came in the base-model Z3. Now, you can only get it with a choice of six-cylinder engines: A) overpowered, and B) extremely overpowered.
We drove the Z3 with the 2.8-liter engine, which adds about 30 miles an hour at the top end. It's overkill for most people, in our opinion, and will probably tempt certain knuckleheads into driving much too fast. (Then again, if you're driving this car, or any car that fast, you probably deserve to die in a fiery crash. And you probably will.) Even European Car magazine thinks this car is too fast--and when crazy European drivers think a car is out of control, you've got serious reason for concern.
Unless you feel an overwhelming desire to crash into a bridge at 140 miles an hour--when 110 would do just fine--stick with the smaller, 2.5-liter six. Or protest this ridiculous horsepower race which BMW is encouraging and get a Miata.
One problem with the Z3: it has a surprisingly cheap plastic rear window, which, we guarantee, will get creased the first time you put the top down. In the Miata, Mazda has wisely changed their rear window design from plastic to glass to avoid this problem. It's too bad BMW didn't steal that idea.
One final thought on the Z3: this is a completely different car, depending upon what color you select. Red, in our humble opinion, is out. Too loud. We would go with silver, with the black roof--it's classy, but not flashy.
View cars.com model report on this vehicle.
