Wiesmann’s New Bespoke BMW Z4 Costs 911 Turbo S Money – CarBuzz

Germany’s Wiesmann made a name for itself in the 1990s with its bespoke, retro-inspired BMW sports cars like the BMW M5-powered MF5. Sadly, twenty years after its first roadster debuted in 1993, Wiesmann went bankrupt in 2013, but there have been rumors the company is planning a comeback.

Back in 2019, we got our first look at a prototype of the Wiesmann MF6, codenamed Project Gecko. Wiesmann will lift the wraps off Project Gecko sometime this year. Before then, however, one of the company’s founders has helped set up a new bespoke car company called Boldmen Automobile – and this is its first creation.

Meet the Boldmen CR4, a bespoke roadster based on the BMW Z4. Boldmen was founded by Friedhelm Wiesmann, Harald Kas, and Michael Kas, who worked at Ruf and Alpine, so the team has a lot of pedigree between them. In case you were wondering, CR4 stands for “Carbon Roadster 400 Horsepower.”

As the name suggests, the bespoke body panels are made of carbon fiber to make the sports car as light as possible and the roadster comes with an electric soft-top roof. With its bug-eyed headlights and an Audi-style hexagonal grille replacing BMW’s kidney grilles, the CR4’s peculiar styling will divide opinions.

Under the hood, the CR4 is powered by a BMW-sourced 3.0-liter turbocharged inline-six tuned to produce 402 hp. This makes it more powerful than America’s Z4 M40i, which is good for 382 hp. This power boost enables the CR4 to accelerate from 0-62 mph in 3.9 seconds before hitting an electronically limited top speed of 155 mph.

Boldmen only intends to build 20 examples of the CR4 this year and another 80 in 2022. If there’s enough demand, production could be extended to 120 units per year. Every example will be built by hand to the customer’s unique specification, which explains why the CR4 starts at an eye-watering €185,000 ($218,000) – that’s around $168,000 more than a regular BMW Z4.