At $55,000, Is This 2017 BMW i8 An Eye-Catching Deal?

Rocking an arrest-me-red coat of paint and shockingly yellow-hued brake calipers, today’s Nice Price or No Dice i8 definitely isn’t subtle in its appearance. While its three-cylinder engine and electric hybrid drivetrain aren’t quite as loud and proud, there’s a lot going on there, too. Let’s see if its price tag readily shouts ‘bargain city!’

M. Night Shyamalan built his career crafting films that pocket a surprise twist near the end, shaking up viewers’ entire outlook on what has come before. In the 1960s, TV’s ‘The Twilight Zone’ offered similar mind-bending stories with whiplash third acts.

I found myself in one of those stories yesterday. My thought was that the well-preserved but mega-mileage (212K) 1986 Toyota Tercel SR5 4WD Wagon we considered would be a slam-dunk at its $5,800 asking. Imagine my surprise when it failed to find favor during your adjudication. Go ahead, imagine it. I’ll wait. Ultimately, too few of you shared my initial line of thinking, leading to the Tercel toppling in a 56% ‘No Dice’ loss. Shocking!

In the 1980s, the primary way to achieve good fuel economy was to go down in size—both body and engine—which led to cars like yesterday’s Tercel. In the late 1990s and since, however, there has been a new sheriff in town, and its name is the hybrid drivetrain. First popularized by Toyota’s Prius, an internal combustion engine/electric motor combo enables smaller engines to power larger vehicles and support short hops on ions only. These days, pretty much every car maker worth its salt is making some sort of hybrid gas/electric.

BMW has played this game since 2010 when it introduced the energetically named ActiveHybrid 7. The company went a step further just three years later with the introduction of the all-electric-but-not-too-scary-because-it-has-an-optional-on-board-generator i3. This was the first salvo in what BMW intended at the time to be a full line of electric and hybrid cars that would fall under its newly minted “i” brand. That plan fell apart in short order, with the only other i car to reach the market being the i8 hybrid sports car.

According to a 2016 BMW press release, the hybrid i8’s production numbers at the time were “comfortably exceeding expectations.” It’s hard to guess just how many cars BMW’s bean counters expected to sell since the i8 proved not to be a smoke show on the sales charts and ended production after just six years on the market, with just a little over 20,000 sold.

That makes for a reasonably rare car. This 2017 BMW i8 Protonic Red Edition is one of just 400 units reportedly built, making it even rarer.

The Protonic Red package was comprised of the aforementioned Protonic Red primary paint color, staggered W spoke 470 alloy wheels, and an interior trimmed with red stitching, and an extra slathering of carbon fiber trim.

According to its ad, this 47,000-mile edition “Runs and drives absolutely astonishing.” Grammatical correctness aside, that’s a pretty strong enticement for our interest in the car.

It should be noted that BMW went all out on the i8. Not only does it feature that incredible swoopy bodywork, but that still manages to fit four-place seating in the cabin—in a mid-engine car. Plus, it has those wonderful butterfly doors. You’ll have to tell me in the comments whether those are millionaire doors or billionaire doors. And yes, the back end of the car looks like it’s pooping out another, smaller car. You can’t unsee that.

Power comes from a hybrid drivetrain comprised of a turbocharged 1.5-liter three-cylinder gasoline engine making 228 horsepower, paired with a 129-horsepower electric motor. With onboard electron storage comprised of a 7.2 kWh Lithium Ion battery pack, the i8 can do around 15 miles of whisper-quiet all-electric driving until it is necessary to release the gas engine’s kraken.

The seller boasts that this i8 has all the bells and whistles befitting its position as the most expensive trim package on what was once a very expensive car. It’s also said to work perfectly, need nothing, and to have a clean title. The wear and tear evident is minimal, with even the center screen appearing as-new, which is a plus, as that’s a known failure point on these cars.

As noted, this was an expensive car when new, with this special edition likely emptying its first owner’s wallet to the tune of somewhere around $150K. Naturally, that was then, and this isn’t a Porsche 911, so we expect there to be some depreciation. What we might not expect, though, is how much value this car has lost over the past nine years. The seller asks $55,000 for the car, which is a significant reduction from that new-car-smell price. It’s as though it has been prescribed some sort of automotive Ozempic. 

Despite that loss, the seller assures prospective buyers that this i8 “will gain value over the years.” Ok. We can give them that. Or we can just marvel at the prospect of getting one of the coolest cars of the last decade for one-third of its original asking. Do you think that’s a reasonable plan? Or is $55,000 still too high for what is likely a still-falling star?

You decide!

Portland, Oregon, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.

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