Mark Glover’s AutoGlo
car reviews also can be seen on the Business page of The Sacramento Bee’s website – via the “GALLERY: Reviews of new cars” link at
www.sacbee.com/business
Like when you see a small configuration of letters and
numbers spelling out this: BMW Z4. Add
in BMW Z4 sDrive35is, and you know you’re really going to be enjoying a primo
version of the hot two-seat droptop.
Extra bonus, my 2013 Z4 tester showed up painted bright red
… about as in-your-face as a sporty car can get.
I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves: 3 liters, six cylinders,
335 horsepower. Can the lightweight,
turbocharged Z4 scoot? Yes, it can.
I tried to ignore the other numbers, like a bottom line of
nearly $70,000 on the sticker and so-so fuel mileage ratings of 17 miles per
gallon in the city and 24 mpg on the highway.
This is an open-road performance car, so it’s OK to purge all feelings
of price and fuel-consumption guilt and just enjoy the ride.
Enjoy, I did.
The tested Z4 was a monorail-like blast. Fast on the draw. Rock-solid on high-speed turns. A warrior in rush-hour traffic.
And oh, doesn’t it look sweet riding on those 19-inch alloy,
double-spoke wheels? When parked in my
neighborhood, I noticed cars driving slowly by it or circling the block to give
it a second look. Uh-huh, I’ll confess
that I took selfish enjoyment from watching that parade.
The suspension on the Z4 is decidedly sport-tuned, so the
seat of your pants absorbs road bumps, but hey, this is a two-seat sports car. Silky smooth isn’t necessarily part of the
deal.
Nor should it be.
I was pleasantly surprised by a fairly lengthy list of cool interior
features. Also, my tester was bumped up
in price by a $2,150 navigation system.
That nav system was wasted on me. I was simply looking to get lost in my time
with the Z4. With this two-seater, yeah,
you can get lost in a hurry.
My week in the red rocket was entirely too short. But I loved every minute of it.
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