[The HACK]

This is playing out almost exactly like BMW's own E86 Z4 M Coupe launch.

The mighty E86 Coupe was launched in March of 2006 to much fanfare. "OMG S54 in a 200 lbs lighter chassis than the E46 M3? With more than 2X the structural rigidity? Coupled with BMW's greatest steering rack ever from the E36 M3? Sign me the f**k up!" I remember walking in to my favorite BMW dealership to my favorite BMW General Sales Manager and said "I want one and I want it now." He smiled at me and asked how much over MSRP was I willing to pay for the one they had coming in 6 weeks.

I balked at the idea of paying mark-up, so I placed an order for one at MSRP. To this day still the ONLY car I have ever paid more than factory invoice for in more in more than 20 years of car buying and ownership experience. Deposit was accepted in March. Production date was slated for August...Because EVERY SINGLE ONE of their allocation has been spoke for until then, and they're the number 3 BMW dealership in the country so they actually had 2 coming in every month.

When I picked it up on first week of September, I have only ever seen one other Z4 M Coupe IRL outside of dealership lots. Up until the month of maybe early October, in a 100 mile radius in the highest BMW dealership density area in the world, there's maybe 2-3 available on all the lots combined. We're talking about 10-12 BMW dealership within a 50 mile radius. Every one of them demanded a $10,000 mark-up.

Spoke with the same General Sales Manager near the end of November, because I wanted to get an E92 for my wife to replace her E60 545i (because, you know, REPAIR BILLS). Took a walk through their lot and I counted 6 Z4 M Coupes on the floor. So I asked him about it, and grimly he told me that they couldn't give them away. In fact, there's a $5,000 trunk cash to move them (at the time. The trunk cash increased to $10,000 by next April), and that BMW may have totally mis-calculated the demand and started producing them at a much higher pace (there were total of 3xx built in 2006 for world wide consumption. They basically doubled the production volume for 2007 and 2008 to come to 4,xxx total made if memory serves). By late 2007 they were all being sold for invoice MINUS the $10,000 trunk cash, making them around $48K out the door for one that's minimally optioned. I paid $56K MSRP for mine plus nearly 10% tax.

By all means, the Zupra is a fantastic car. So was the Z4 M Coupe. It's just, really, the market for a 2 seater sport car is depressed and often over estimated. There really isn't that much room here for more than a few cars per segment, and you've got pressure from the lower end in the form of a Miata and the Toyobaru, and spend another $5 grand in features and you're in mid engine C8 Corvette range. In the same pricing category you've got far more practical solutions that are nearly as fast if not faster in Crapstangs and Mullet-maros, both have back seats and far more sensible if it's going to be your ONLY car.

Plus direct competition from BMW in the forms of the E46 M3 for the Z4 M Coupe (2 more seats, $8,000 less MSRP) and M2 Competition (2 more seats, marginally more expensive). Had they (BMW and Yota) priced both the Z4 M Coupe and the Supra about $10,000 less, I believe there's a legitimate market that exists that DO want a funky little sporty car like this.

But not big enough to support selling more than a few thousand copies a year, IMO.