BMW’s team-up with Italian styling house Pininfarina, the Gran Lusso coupe has been revealed in full at the 2013 Villa d’Este Concorso d’Eleganza in Italy. The imposing V12-powered coupe is a one-off styling concept for now, but shows the direction BMW could take for a new 8-series coupe, designed to battle the new Mercedes S-class coupe and Bentley Continental GT.
BMW Gran Lusso: the details
Riding on 21in alloys, the 7-series-sized Gran Lusso has all the trademark BMW styling boxes ticked: forward-raked ‘sharknose’ grille, the rear pillar’s ‘Hofmeister kink’ in the windowline, and a cab-back stance accentuating that long bonnet. The sides are dominated by the large scallop behind the side vent cut-out: expect to see that lower styling line replicated on the next generation of showroom-ready BMWs.
Something about the BMW Gran Lusso seems strangely familiar…
Although this is the first time the Gran Lusso’s been shown, some of its styling does recall the BMW CS Concept from 2007. The supersized four-door coupe was intended to go into production as the flagship BMW, but BMW got the jitters about building a high-end model in the wake of the financial crisis. The idea of a four-door BMW coupe has lived on in the 6-series Gran Coupe, and elements of the CS still influence modern BMWs, such as the rear light shapes and prominent kidney grilles.
Could the Gran Lusso really be the new BMW 8-series?
Though BMW insists the Gran Lusso is a one-off, it’s certainly a shot across the bows of Bentley, Maserati, and Mercedes and their two-door, four-seat coupes. With some more conventional door mirrors, downsized wheels and boring necessaries like window-wipers, the Gran Lusso could become a viable future production model, based on the 7-series limousine’s underpinnings.
>> For more on the BMW Grand Lusso, find CAR’s teaser shots story here.