BMW has a long history of making incredible looking concept cars, cars that excite the imagination of its enthusiasts, only to have those concepts die before ever making it to the production floor. Despite the brand’s affinity for teasing us with concepts that will never exist, fans still love almost every Bavarian concept car that’s made. There are a few standouts, though, concepts that BMW fans wish the brand would have actually made. One such car is the BMW Nazca M12, which was just named one of Top Gear’s best concept cars of the ’90s.
In 1991, Giorgetto Giugiaro’s son Fabrizio penned the BMW Nazca M12, which was meant to be an extremely lightweight, incredibly aerodynamic hypercar, something that could take down the Ferrari F40. It only weighed around 1,100 kg (2,425 lbs) and had the same 5.0 liter V12 as the BMW 850i, making 300 horsepower. The Nazca M12’s lightweight body also featured a drag coefficient of 0.26, which was impressive for the early ’90s. Obviously, with advanced technology and wind-tunnel testing, most modern cars can crush that figure but, in the days before widespread computer use, 0.26 was seriously impressive.
BMW never sold the Nazca M12, which is a shame as it would have been one of the coolest cars in the history of the brand, even today. However, according to TG, there’s a rumor that the Sultan of Brunei paid Giugiaro’s Italdesign enough money to make one for him. We don’t know if that’s true but, if it is, we’d love to know what sort of number he would have had to offer.
The BMW Nazca M12 was an awesome looking car, with its smooth ’90s styling, massive bug-antennae side mirrors and tiny kidney grilles. It looked like both the spiritual successor to the BMW M1, as well as the answer to cars like the Bugatti EB110. We wish the Nazca was put into production but we’re not entirely surprised that it never did. Still, it’s one of the coolest concept cars in BMW’s history.
[Source: Top Gear]
