You may have read about this elsewhere, this is BMW’s Concept Z4, it was leaked ahead of its official reveal at the 2017 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and is said to be a precursor of what the new Z4 will look like. We can say this for sure, the production version of the 2018 Z4 will not be even remotely close to this very nice looking Z4 Concept. So, why is that? It’s all to do with cost. First of all world, wide sales of the Z4 have fallen, let’s take Europe and the USA market as an example. When the Z4 was released in 2003 it recorded 22,000 European sales. Since then sales have fallen, just over 3,000 units were sold in 2016. In the USA sales are up, down and up again, but not significantly close to matching Europe, when the Z4 launched in 2000, 317 units were sold. Sales peaked in 2003 at 20,169 and have since declined, in 2016 Z4 sales recorded just 1,187. By contrast, the BMW 3 Series records consistent worldwide sales of over 300,000 units per year. So that means the Z4 is an uneconomical vanity project. Indeed it’s a surprise BMW haven’t ended production. The Z4 Concept may well be the last throw of the dice for the Z4, classic rear-wheel-drive roadster sports coupes are no longer in vogue, people are going for pickups or SUVs. That said the new Z4 is actually a joint engineering venture with Toyota, to keep costs down. The Z4 is being developed alongside the new Toyota Supra and will be offered with a selection of two petrol engines, a 2.0-litre turbo available in two power derivatives, 181bhp and 248bhp. The second engine will be a 355bhp, in-line straight-six. A 425bhp M variant is also rumoured. Price? expensive maybe, the production ready Z4 will be officially revealed at the 2018 Geneva Motorshow, so, for now, marvel at the Z4 Concept because the production version will not look as marvellous.