Buy/Drive/Burn: Super Expensive Convertibles From 2001

The Buy/Drive/Burn series has been all about convertibles lately. We started with some $40,000 luxury entries from 2010, then upped the dollar figure with three more from 2009 that asked over $90,000 for the pleasure of their company.

Today we step back in time to the year 2001, and spend even more money. The cheapest drop-top here is over $120,000. Let’s go.

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Rare Rides: A BMW Z8 From 2001 Empties Your Wallet

We’ve had more BMWs featured on Rare Rides than any other marque. Aside from the BMW-powered Vixen motor home and the Alpina B7S, there was the Freeclimber, the mid-engine supercar flop called the M1, and the first experiment in the cabriolet Z category, the Z1.

Let’s see what happens when BMW makes a car eight times better than the Z1.

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  • TheEndlessEnigma I would mandate the elimination of all autonomous driving tech in automobiles. And specifically for GM....sorry....gm....I would mandate On Star be offered as an option only.Not quite the question you asked but.....you asked.
  • MaintenanceCosts There's not a lot of meat to this (or to an argument in the opposite direction) without some data comparing the respective frequency of "good" activations that prevent a collision and false alarms. The studies I see show between 25% and 40% reduction in rear-end crashes where AEB is installed, so we have one side of that equation, but there doesn't seem to be much if any data out there on the frequency of false activations, especially false activations that cause a collision.
  • Zerocred Automatic emergency braking scared the hell out of me. I was coming up on a line of stopped cars that the Jeep (Grand Cherokee) thought was too fast and it blared out an incredibly loud warbling sound while applying the brakes. I had the car under control and wasn’t in danger of hitting anything. It was one of those ‘wtf just happened’ moments.I like adaptive cruise control, the backup camera and the warning about approaching emergency vehicles. I’m ambivalent  about rear cross traffic alert and all the different tones if it thinks I’m too close to anything. I turned off lane keep assist, auto start-stop, emergency backup stop. The Jeep also has automatic parking (parallel and back in), which I’ve never used.
  • MaintenanceCosts Mandatory speed limiters.Flame away - I'm well aware this is the most unpopular opinion on the internet - but the overwhelming majority of the driving population has not proven itself even close to capable of managing unlimited vehicles, and it's time to start dealing with it.Three important mitigations have to be in place:(1) They give 10 mph grace on non-limited-access roads and 15-20 on limited-access roads. The goal is not exact compliance but stopping extreme speeding.(2) They work entirely locally, except for downloading speed limit data for large map segments (too large to identify with any precision where the driver is). Neither location nor speed data is ever uploaded.(3) They don't enforce on private property, only on public roadways. Race your track cars to your heart's content.
  • GIJOOOE Anyone who thinks that sleazbag used car dealers no longer exist in America has obviously never been in the military. Doesn’t matter what branch nor assigned duty station, just drive within a few miles of a military base and you’ll see more sleazbags selling used cars than you can imagine. So glad I never fell for their scams, but there are literally tens of thousands of soldiers/sailors/Marines/airmen who have been sold a pos car on a 25% interest rate.