2025 BMW Z4 Handschalter Review – The End of the Manual BMW Era

Sometimes we don’t realize how good we have it until it’s gone. We are at an incredible moment in history for the auto industry. We stand on the transition from internal combustion to electrified powertrains. Cars have become faster, more technologically advanced and more capable than ever before. BMW is no exception. With progress, comes sacrifice. For enthusiasts, we mourn the loss of the engagement and joy that comes from the manual transmission. In this changing world, the Bavarians gave us a farewell gift: The 2025 Z4 BMW Handschalter.

The manual Z4 is in a league of its own in 2024. In a world of SUVs, crossovers, and electric cars we have something with all the ingredients of a fantastic enthusiast car: a rear-wheel drive, inline-six powered roadster with three pedals. Great recipe, but did the end result taste as good as it sounds? Short answer: Hell yes!

Sharing with the Supra

It’s no secret that the current generation Z4 shares its chassis and components with the Toyota Supra. Sports cars are rare these days and the fact we get to have both in an age where automakers have to spend so much on retooling factories as well as research and development for electric vehicles is a blessing. While other manufacturers have nearly completely killed off their roadster and convertible offerings, the Z4 remains.

The Z4’s Unique Position

The 2025 BMW Z4 is an incredibly unique offering starting this year until 2026. There are very few roadsters or convertibles on sales today with more than four cylinders, and even fewer with a manual option. This car is not out to challenge any current competition. This car exists as a monument to the BMW driving experience we grew to love over the last forty years.

Driving Experience

This experience became immediately apparent one early morning when I fired up the B58 six-cylinder engine, put the car into first gear and set out on some of California’s greatest mountain roads. Up in the canyons, there is no LA stop and go traffic, there is no rush hour, just wide open roads through some of the most beautiful landscapes this side of the Pacific. The refreshed 2025 BMW Z4 felt like the perfect car for a road like this, and so much so, the California Highway Patrol was kind enough to stop and check the car out. They even gave me a nice little yellow slip of paper to commemorate the occasion as a sort of “well done” memento.

Handling and Performance

The winding, curving, undulating roads through the Angeles National Forest present a wonderful way to tell the story of how the engineers wanted to make a car feel. The Z4 itself has been known for its handling. It has a high threshold of capability but it comes with a learning curve. While other new cars come with enough electronic and mechanical driving assistance to make you feel like a “hero” very quickly, the Z4 does require some time behind the wheel. The mechanical grip is enough for up to 8-tenths driving, but closer to the limit the car begins to feel a bit nervous. In reality, the car is quite settled but the front McPherson strut suspension may not provide as much continuous contact patch through the corners as you might see from a double wishbone. A good alignment may fix some of this.

Is this ultimately a bad thing? I would say no. The 2025 BMW Z4 Handschalter isn’t a dedicated track car, it’s a driver’s car. Learning to work around a car’s flaws is part of what makes it so fun.

The playful nature of the 2025 BMW Z4 is what left the biggest impression on me. The short wheelbase, electronically limited slip differential and staggered wheel and tire setup make this car extremely happy to rotate. This car does not understeer and feels every bit rear-wheel drive. Start putting throttle after the apex in a corner and you’ll be greeted with a delightful sensation of the car giving a middle finger to inertia.

The Steering Feedback Can Be Better

The car’s steering, like most modern EPAS systems, is a bit numb. But as far as modern BMW steering this is one of the best I’ve felt. I was pleasantly surprised to get some feedback through the wheel. The quick steering ratio in conjunction with the short wheelbase and limited slip mentioned earlier work together to make this a very playful car that lets you dial in exactly how much steering input you would like.

While 19” and 20” staggered wheels may seem a bit too big for such a small roadster, the 40 sidewall tires provide razor-sharp steering while providing just enough comfort. In conjunction with the adjustable dampers that provided a fair amount of adjustment between the ride quality in comfort and the stiffness in sport mode. However, there is still too much stiffness in both modes. As much as many people believe stiffness equals speed, this is true only on extremely smooth track surfaces. In any real-world driving or rough track surface, more suspension travel and a well-balanced management of compression and rebound are what truly help a car move on a section of road faster.

The Manual Transmission

Then there is what we all have been waiting for: The manual. It’s no secret BMW’s have a rubbery feel to their shifters over the last few decades. It is their characteristic feel. Is it bad? I wouldn’t say so. To say a manual can only feel a certain way is to say there is only one way that a beer can taste. It’s preference and learning to master a manual based on the way it feels adds to the connection you get with a car. This is part of the journey in car ownership.

The good news is that this shifter is one of the best BMW shifters I’ve felt. The updated custom shift linkage and tuning here feels like some of the most direct shifts that feel more crisp than some of the shifters from their older cars. It feels more robust and stout, allowing you to shift more quickly without feeling like you need to delicately handle the shifter between gears. Overall the shift throw is fairly long, but it makes you feel like you have to work for every shift. It’s a very conscious thought and effort which when driving, felt rewarding.

Clutch Pedal Experience

The clutch pedal adds to the experience. While the pedal travel is fairly long, it’s well weighted and on the lighter end. It’s easy to modulate pedal travel and not too difficult to use in stop and go traffic as the car also coasts at 5 mph in first gear. The catch point is in the upper three-quarters of the pedal travel, which is exactly where I like it to be. The pedals are close enough to heel-toe downshift if you decide to turn off BMW’s auto rev-matching feature that works great. Overall, no complaints with the clutch.

Overall this 2025 BMW Z4 Handschalter has just about everything you’d want from an enthusiast’s car. It’s a dopamine trip and took me back to some fond memories. As I was shifting through the gears, I couldn’t help but think back to when I was a kid. My family at the BMW dealership in Wilmington, Delaware picking up his then brand new E46 generation 330i in Topaz Blue that had just come off the boat from Germany. I remember as a kid sitting in the backseat watching him row through the gears on highway on-ramps and the smiles it put on our faces as we heard the inline-six rev out before each gear shift. With every shift, I felt that connection with the older BMWs we came to love that were synonymous with driving pleasure. This car is no exception. It is one of the best automotive experiences I have had in the last five years.

A Farewell to Manuals

It is a sad day to see that the future of three pedals is dwindling. But, the 2025 BMW Z4 Handschalter is a spectacular farewell letter to those who prefer driving experience over performance numbers. This entire review I didn’t even bother with performance figures. The car is more than fast enough and it feels every bit of that with the top down and the wind rushing through your hair and the sun beating down on your face. My complaints about the car were minimal. I wish there were less piano black plastic on the interior trim for the “Handschalter” package and I wish they had ventilated seats but these are first-world problems and I would be much more quick to critique the death of the manual for the brand beyond anything else.

Arguably BMW’s Best Driving Car Today

If you ever looked at a car as an enthusiast and said, “I wish they would put a manual in that car” or “I wish manufacturers would build a real enthusiast car,” then you need to buy this car. There is no business case for this car. There is no financial reason this car exists. Less than 1000 Z4s were sold this year so far and the number of manual cars sold in the US will probably reach only a few hundred.

But I am telling you, if you have any reservations in your mind about whether to buy this car: Don’t. Buy it!

BMW built something incredibly special for us and this was a gift to themselves as engineers who have been striving to build the Ultimate Driving Machine. Sometimes we don’t realize how good we had it until it’s gone. Will this be a future classic in 20 years when people want to remember the last great analog BMW? Probably. But just like those who didn’t buy the last generation Supra before it was killed off, sometimes it takes decades for people to truly appreciate something.

The manual is a transformative feature for the Z4 and it was exactly what the car needed and should have had when it was launched several years ago. Better late than never. The 2025 BMW Z4 Handschalter reminds us of why we love BMW, and I’m sad to see it go, but glad that it’s here for us now.

[Photos: @ekaterinagorbacheva.art]