The BMW i8 is one of those cars which you can never really have enough of. We have driven the futuristic hybrid quite a few times. In Austria, in France, in Germany, and this time around, we got a few miles on it in Dubai. Despite not being Millennials, we have had our fair share of movies based on the future, both utopic and dystopic. And so, our affection for the BMW i8 is natural because this little baby from Munich is as futuristic as it can get… in the present at least!

‘What is the best thing about this car?’ is such a debatable question when it comes to the BMW i8. It looks smashing, and if it featured in Tron or I, Robot, it’d fit right in. The car has been designed like that. It is all luminous, which lends it the futuristic look and all edgy, which lends it the sports car look. It has been executed wonderfully, be it the air scoop or the eyelid of sorts on the taillight, which looks like a separate piece. The same thing is done in front of the rear wheels too. We wonder what the sketching session for this car would have been like…

When you are behind the wheel of a car which has such a presence, you need to dress up for the occasion. This cool jacket from Rare Rabbit sits just right with the i8.

The headlight looks amazing, and just when we thought that the butterfly grille cannot be bettered (from the M-series cars), BMW tops it up with something like that. LED DRLs in the headlights and the blue accents on the grille lend it a picture-perfect front fascia, which you can see in the pictures. The same goes for the tail section. The taillight and the rear turn-signals are just wunderschönen! The next thing is probably the most crucial thing that cements the i8’s status as a sports car… the scissor doors.

Gone are the days when you had to carry a barbell of a laptop in order to have decent performance. Lenovo ThinkPad P1 has all the grunt you need to work on photos and videos and it weighs just 1.7 kg!

The scissor doors on the i8 are a thing of beauty. The whole experience of opening the door, getting in the car and then closing the door evokes emotions that not a lot of things can. The doors on the i8 are special, though, as they lack a door handle; you just push a button on the door to open it! Talk to BMW if you want borderline insane creature comforts. While the exterior of the car is beautiful, it is the interior that makes you feel like you just travelled in time, to the future, of course.

The first thing that grabs your attention when you are inside the car is the large, full-LCD gauge cluster. Yes, it just shows you all the information that you need while driving around, but more than that, it changes colour and the information displayed according to the mode. In Sport mode, it is red and shows the tachometer and the speedo. In comfort, it shows your speed and the percentage of power being used. Put it in Eco Pro, and it limits the power to 50% and even that is displayed on the gauge. One of the coolest features, though, inside the car is the touch-controlled pad on the centre console. You can even draw doodles on it and show them on the screen. Less important stuff, like it accepts commands and is used to scroll about, need not be mentioned!

BMW, Mini, Rolls-Royce and BMW Motorrad vehicles are imported in Dubai and the Northern Emirates exclusively by AGMC, which stands for Arabian Gulf Mechanical Center. We are very thankful to the cool folks at AGMC who lent us the BMW i8 to drive around Dubai.

The design is definitely the best part of this car, so why the debate in the beginning? Performance is the answer. The car is propelled by a hybrid-electric powertrain. A 1,499cc petrol engine sends power to the rear wheels while the electric motor sends power to the front wheels, effectively making the car all-wheel drive. The combined output of both these motors is 374 bhp, which is not shabby by a long shot. Add to that 570 Nm of combined torque and less than 1,600 kg weight, the result is a 0-100 km/h timing of 4.4s and an electronically limited top speed of 250 km/h. So despite the not-so-mind-blowing numbers on paper, the i8 is pretty darn swift.

Put the i8 in sport mode, floor the pedal, and hear the engineers in Munich shout, “Can we get a hell yeah!” This is a seriously quick car, and it sounds bloody darn good, almost to the point of being a V8. How? Through the speakers… but hey, the execution is so darn good, which, coupled with the performance, does not make it feel like the sound is not real! And bear with us as we tell you that those are the attributes of a car that can go up to 20 miles on the electric motor alone, charges the battery when driven in sports mode, then there’s brake energy regeneration, and the fact that a car that looks like this can be driven around in electric mode with absolute silence!

Why is the BMW i8 one of the most impressive cars of the current time? It does most of the things a sports car does. The handling is sharp, and yet, in the city, the ride is compliant and comfortable. Despite being a car of that calibre, it is happy being driven around like normal cars at normal speeds without it jerking and being angry about not being driven fast. The automatic transmission is a gem, and the shifts are not even palpable. Germans are serious people when it comes to automobile technology and design, and the i8 imbues all their prowess and yet, unlike many other technologically gifted cars, it still has a soul… It sure has been for Sheer Driving Pleasure!