News and coverage of the all-new BMW flagship coupe, the 8 Series, has been swimming around the internet for some time now ahead of the car’s global launch rollout, but the Munich automaker is also keen to garner some interest in its drop-top interpretation of the big V8 grand tourer.
Unsurprisingly named the 8 Series Convertible, the car is currently undergoing its latter stages of pre-production testing, so BMW thought it an opportune time to bring a photographer along to capture it running through Death Valley as part of its hot climate trials.
The camouflaged 8 Series Convertible was tasked with enduring the blazing heat of the famous valley in eastern California, where temperatures routinely go north of 50 degrees Celsius, where the car was driven and left stationary without shade for extended periods. Making things harder for any vehicle is also the fine dust particles that get swept up as the car moves along.
From there, it has to wade through stop-go traffic in nearby Las Vegas and the gravel tracks around Mount Whitney before embarking on an interstate journey toward the Rocky Mountains and back toward the Pacific Ocean.
BMW says that no issues or failures cropped up with the car’s onboard electronics, mechanical components, driver assist systems, various sensors, or its automatic climate control system. Thankfully, for the photographer, most of these images look to be taken closer to Hoover Dam where temperatures are still hot but not as torturous.
These extreme climate testing is typical for most modern cars, especially those from premium manufacturers, and work in tandem with concurrent other campaigns for the 8 Series Convertible such as the cold weather testing in Arjeplog, Sweden and performance testing at the Nurburgring circuit in Germany.
The automaker hasn’t disclosed any new details about the 8 Series Convertible this time around, unfortunately, but there’s little to suggest that this car differs greatly from the M850i spec that was initially announced for the coupe.
Should those suspicions be correct, a 4.4-litre twin-turbocharged V8 resides under that camouflaged bonnet, mated to an 8-speed ZF automatic transmission sending power - 390kW and 750Nm - to all four corners via the xDrive system
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