Meet BMW Skytop, a roadster you can’t buy any longer

The BMW Skytop Concept that debuted earlier this year has now officially reached production in Germany, spurred by the overwhelmingly positive feedback received from customers, says BMW Chief Designer Adrian van Hooydonk. Only 50 units will be made, and they had all been sold out well before the last weekend’s premiere.

Starting on the exterior side of things, the BMW Skytop looks all but sprinkled with homages to the company’s famous classics, like the BMW 507 and the Z8. For one thing, it rocks a modern version of the “shark nose” with unique LED headlights. For another, it features a very short rear overhang. The automaker calls it a roadster, but it looks more like a Targa from a design standpoint (you are supposed to manually remove the roof panels when not used and store them in a dedicated section of the trunk).

We still don’t have any cabin shots, but the concept car had an interior nearly identical to the 8-Series. The powertrain also apparently comes from that model. BMW says it incorporates a 4.4-liter V8 turbocharged to 625 PS (616 hp / 460 kW) and an eight-speed automatic transmission driving all four wheels. The Skytop needs 3.3 seconds to go from zero to 100 km/h (62 mph).