It’s Almost Here! New BMW 8 Series Photos Surface As Launch Nears

Two new photos of the impending BMW 8 Series surfaced as the car nears its launch

If you’ve been waiting for BMW’s long-awaited 8 Series to return, you won’t have to wait much longer. Case in point – the company just quietly released two new images as it celebrated production figures at its Dingolfing plant. 8 Series production will begin later this year at the Bavarian plant, which overtook the American plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina to produce the most vehicles last year. At present, the plant produces 376,000 vehicles annually with 17,700 employees.

Here, the car’s pictured next to the i8, which is produced at BMW’s Landshut plant. Even though the 8 Series is lightly camouflaged, we can make out the coupe’s sculpted shape, distinctive headlights and the signature kidney grille. IT also sports a double bubble roof and some massive alloy wheels, which speaks well to the car’s performance cred.

Unfortunately, we don’t know a whole lot about actual performance figures just yet. BMW’s keeping those close to the vest for the time being. However, it’s pretty safe to imagine that the company will use similar powertrains to other models in the lineup. That means the familiar 4.4-liter twin turbo V8 could end up in the mix. In the current M550i, that powertrain chucks out 456 horsepower and 480 lb-ft of torque.

BMW will likely follow the ordinary 8 Series up with an M8 performance version as well, which may match (or beat) the new BMW M5 for power. That would be remarkable, as the 2018 M5 isn’t exactly gutless. We’d expect to see that car make north of 600 horsepower. 0-60 acceleration should be pretty brisk as well.

There’s no specific launch date at this point, but the car should go on sale later this year.

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