Short Take Road Test
Lose a contact lens, or smear Vaseline on your corneas, and the details of the BMW 645Ci convertible haze over until only the proportions remain. Then it's apparent that what BMW has here isn't so much a rebirth of the old 6-series as it is the company's first Camaro. From the long hood and radical rake of its windshield to its flattop fantail, the 645Ci convertible's profile is a ringer for that of the '89 Camaro convertible. The similarities get downright spooky when the 190.2-inch-long, 73.0-inch-wide German's dimensions are compared with the 192.0-inch-long, 72.8-inch-wide American's (the most significant difference is the BMW's wheelbase, which is 8.4 inches longer). The 645's back seat is every bit as useless as a Camaro's, too. This is an IROC-Z for rich guys.
The '89 Camaro convertible's best attribute was its proportions, so cribbing them is no bad thing. And top down, the 645Ci convertible looks better than the coupe, although the butt bustle (done here in plastic) penned under BMW's former design boss, the American Chris Bangle, is still distracting.
Here's the obligatory swipe at iDrive: Thank God it hasn't been entrusted with the top's operation. Instead, the roof is controlled by two awkward-to-reach switches forward of the shifter. Hit and hold the button to open the top, and about 24 seconds of whirring motors later it's nestled under a cover with all the windows still up. The reverse process takes about 26 seconds. Top up, the 645Ci could be driven in the Danube without leaking, and it seals out noise and looks wicked—almost chopped—with trailing flying buttresses similar to those on Ferrari's F355 Spider.
Those fins bracket a vertical glass rear window that slides up and down independently of the top, residing in a channel behind the rear seats. When the top is stowed, the window can be raised to act as an effective wind blocker by using the right-rear power window switch on the driver's door after pushing another button right below it. Top up, the rear window is a bunkerlike 6.5-inch slit that, along with intrusively tall rear-seat head restraints, allows minimal rearward vision. The driver might know it's a Crown Vic behind him, but not whether it has a light bar on its roof. Combine that with smaller aft side windows, and the optional park-assist sonar system is vital during berthing maneuvers.
Top down, the 645Ci convertible is more engaging than its coupe brother, if for no other reason than that the spectacular sound of the exhaust becomes prominent. Mechanically, the convertible is identical to the coupe: the same suspension swiped from the 5-series; the same 325-hp, 4.4-liter DOHC V-8 under its hood; the same choice of three six-speed transmissions—manual, Sequential Manual Gearbox, and Steptronic automatic. Our test car had the beautiful-shifting manual that gets a shorter 3.46:1 final drive than does the manual coupe (it has 3.23:1 cogs).
The lower gear compensates somewhat for the convertible's extra mass. Thanks to additional bracing, a beefier front subframe, a strengthened windshield frame, and pop-up rear roll bars, among other things, the convertible weighs in about 400 pounds heavier than the coupe, easily bursting past two tons. Getting 4280 pounds from standstill to 60 mph in 5.6 seconds is a commendable feat, even if that's 0.3 second off what the automatic coupe did in a comparison test last month. The quarter-mile goes by in 14.1 seconds at 100 mph.
Except for seatbelts integrated into the front seats, the convertible's interior is practically indistinguishable from the coupe's, and even with the top stowed and all the windows down, there's little buffeting. The structure feels at least as stiff as the Mercedes SL's, with a slight shudder over obstacles such as railroad tracks; just enough to add some interest to the otherwise dull "active steering."
As is the coupe, the 645Ci convertible is a brilliant machine muffled under a blanket of who-asked-for-it technology. Putting down the top lets the driver strip off some of that insulation and discover a few hints of what lurks beneath: the best damn Camaro $78,295 can buy.
