Boston.com's view

Most of you will never see this car, except in photographs.

Almost none of you will ever ride in one. Fewer than that will ever own one. So why review it? Because it was there.

Right there, hunkered down in my driveway, looking like something out of the 1950s, yet infused with all that modern technology has to offer.

James Bond drove the BMW Z8. Why shouldn’t I? And why not share it with you? We’ll get back to reality next week. For now, just imagine …

You know this car will be sitting in your driveway one morning soon, so you do some research. You haul out Jeremy Walton’s wonderful history of 80 years of BMW, ”Unbeatable BMW,” and you look for the genesis of this hottest of Bimmers. You find it in the 1950s – the BMW 507 roadster. You tuck away what you read.

The day comes and there is the Z8 in the driveway. It sits there looking much like the 507. Same cuts for the doors, side vents like fish gills, long kidney-shaped grilles, long hood, long sloping front fenders, chopped bulging rear and fenders.

You climb inside. You feel as if you’re sitting in a 1955 Corvette. Simple dash, spoked steering wheel.

Check out the gauges, which are all positioned at center dash beneath a hooded brow. Speedo, tach, gas, temperature. That’s all you get. All you need. Oh, and an added retro touch? The starter button at center dash.

Check out the steering wheel. Big, and three-spoked. Even the chrome spokes are broken up into four thin fingers each. Retro everywhere. Two-toned (with brushed aluminum thrown in). Whatever is not painted or is not aluminum or chrome is leather. Even the roll bars behind each seat are wrapped in leather.

Definitely a combination of American retro muscle and European bloodlines going on here. ”Perhaps the most beautiful Corvette never to be built at a Chevrolet factory,” it says in Walton’s book.

And like the ‘Vettes of old, the 507 was grossly underpowered compared to today’s models. That German V-8 gave you 140-150 horsepower. Gave you 0-60 in 11.5 seconds. Today’s Z8? Try 400 horsepower and 0-60 in just over 4 seconds. Whomp.

The Z8 is powered by a 5.0-liter engine that is virtually the same mill you find in the M5 sedan. Now the M5 is no slouch, and the Z8 weighs 500 pounds less. So the torque and horsepower that turn the sedan into a jet turn the Z8 into a rocket.

Torque (368 lb.-ft.) is in full play by 1,500 RPMs. At 6,600, horses and torque are in absolute full harmony. The six-speed manual transmission climbs the torque and horse bands with simple, quick clicks. You are way past third gear before you even have time to check out the speedometer. Usually, that means it’s time to slow down.

In fact, with the gauges at center dash, you quickly learn to drive this car by sound. It has one of the finest exhaust notes I’ve ever heard. Deep and burbling, it gets downright staccato as you approach redline.

Struts, split lower A-a rms, and antiroll bar keep the Z8 clinging to the road like lint on Velcro. The seats wrap your thighs and sides, though I’m not sure of their true function (beyond wonderful comfort), since there is virtually no body roll in cornering. Maybe it’s to keep you from sliding too far back as you accelerate in a burst that could easily put you well into triple digits on the speedometer in just seconds.

If you want to know how powerful the Z8 is, just turn off the Dynamic Stability Control system.

Talk about retro.

Punch the gas now – even at 50 miles per hour – and you can induce instant, slick oversteer. It’s a light car – all-aluminum frame – and when you tell it to get up and go, it does just that. Need to come down quickly from all that power? No problem. The 13.5-inch discs up front, 12.9s in the rear, bring this to as straight and sudden a stop as you’ll find. The eyes that went back in your head during acceleration feel as though they’re popping out on the slowd n.

Drive by day, and you attract plenty of attention. Other Bimmer drivers give the thumbs up. Those unfamiliar with the car simply stare.

Drive by night, the road ahead of you is bathed in the ice blue hue of the xenon headlamps, and it feels otherworldly. That outside cool, however, is more than matched by the warm orange bath that engulfs you inside. Not many gauges, but, oh, do they glow.

Again, not many of us will ever even see this car, let alone ride in it, drive it, or, heart be still, own it. Only 400 are coming into the states this year, and already the bidding is fierce.

It was supposed to start at $128,000, but there is word of Z8s fetching well over $200,000 on the Internet.

Silly, you say?

Consider this: One dealer of used, performance BMWs tells me that a 507 today, in excellent condition, is worth $250,000.

So if you have the money, what’s a fantasy worth?

And if you don’t – but had the chance to drive one for a week – what would you do? I left the Pontiac Aztec parked for an extra week.

Nice touch:

The bins-with-doors built into the doors. Great place for storage. Practical thinking in a fantasy auto.

Annoyance:

I like the retro look of the gauges at center dash. With this much power, however, I’d like to be able to actually see the tachometer during acceleration. Something aluminum-rimmed and discreet right behind the wheel would have been nice.