The best laid plans have gang agley this week, with the Brave Pill that had been lovingly prepared well ahead of time selling on Friday, with the advert then disappearing. Powerful proof of the effectiveness of the PH classifieds, but still a bit of an issue in terms of giving you something to read over your cornflakes on Saturday morning.
Our would-be Pill was a black E31 850i that, like one of Paul Smith's showier suits, featured a very flash interior - purple leather accents and a matching carpet. It was mauve enough to let me make every single obvious joke, including references to both Smoke on the Water and the colour turned by roid-rage cartoon Minions.
But it's not the car you see here, with a rapid pivot to the classified's only other early 850i. Which - as coincidence would have it - is being sold by the same dealer as the Aston DB9 we featured two weeks ago. That's right, the one near High Wycombe that takes pictures with cars parked on the kerb outside, much to the disquiet of some commenters.
While the combination of emeraldy Lagoon Green and a biscuity interior isn't as daring as the near violently violet cabin of our first choice Pill, pretty much all other comments are the same. So, with a fair amount of cut-and-paste, here we go...
The term modern classic is one that seems to produce more argument than agreement these days, but the E31 8 Series' status as a future collectable is close to indisputable, especially in V12 form. Yet it wasn't always the case, when new the 8 Series was widely regarded as a bit of a disappointment by reviewers, many who reckoned it was too aloof and removed from the simple joys of the era's lesser Beemers. More surprising to modern eyes is the lukewarm response given to the E31's design, which many reckoned was too soft and lacking in muscle for a pinnacle BMW; some even criticized the use of pop-up headlights.
Thirty years of hindsight has done a tyre-smoking 180-degree turn on that one. It's genuinely hard to think of any car from this era that has aged as well as the E31 has, having managed to make a seamless transition from 'modern' to 'timeless' without ever passing through 'old'. The car's shape, and the decision to use part-time headlights, was down to the pioneering use of both computer aided design and aerodynamic modeling to make it as slippery as possible. But designer Klaus Kapitza still created a modernist masterpiece by keeping the styling free of fuss or extraneous details.
Development of the E31 began as early as 1981, nine years before it would go on sale. The plan was to replace the 6 Series with something bigger and grander, a luxury GT that would both highlight BMW's technical wizardry but also deliver effortless high-speed performance. The plan was for an entry level 840i with a V8 - with considerable thought given to launching a six-cylinder 830i beneath this - with a V12 sitting at the top of the tree. This was the 850i, powered by the same 5.0-litre 'M70' engine that was already in the range-topping E32 7 Series.
This technical masterpiece produced a dizzying - awed hush please - 296hp. True, that figure looks very anemic to modern eyes given the motor's capacity and cylinder count - these days it's well inside four-cylinder hot hatch territory. Back then it was less than the contemporary E34 M5 made from a 3.4-litre straight-six, but the V12 was designed with a very different mission in mind. Together with the aero-optimized shape it made the 850i one of the quickest non-supercars of its era, and one of the first BMWs to require use of a 155mph limiter.
The 850i definitely wasn't a screamer, delivering peak torque much lower than the M5 and with much more linear responses. Charisma was lacking - one of the first U.S. write-ups reckoned it was "like having a giant, vibrationless hydroelectric generator under the hood." Praise was similarly faint for most of the rest of the driving experience, especially the 850i's size, mass and limited athleticism of the chassis. But in its natural environment - the outside lane of a German Autobahn - it cruised as effortlessly as a private jet.
Having sold in modest numbers, 850i values dropped rapidly in the UK. In recent years the combination of style and the compelling unlikeliness of a V12 engine has seen a rise in both interest and asking prices, but valuations still seem to be all over the place. 850is rarely drop under £20,000 these days, with the nicest (or certainly best polished) cars often being offered for double that. Find one of the ultra-rare UK-spec 850 CSIs and it will be similar money to a G15 M850i.
Our original Purple Pill looked like compelling value at £15,000, but this one is being offered for even less - for £13,950 it seems to be the cheapest of the few roadworthy examples currently for sale in the country. New Pill is a four-speed automatic, as most were in period, and although the advert is light on detail the car looks pretty good in the images. A glance at the MOT history reveals it has been off the road for a while - or wearing a different numberplate - with the last MOT expiring in September 2018. The record shows advisories for a semi-regular leaking exhaust plus various rusted or worn suspension components, but nothing to cause undue concern.
Although generally regarded as pretty tough, the risk level remains high with any 850i - and especially one that hasn't been used in a while. Mechanically they are reckoned to be strong, with the understressed V12 capable of huge mileages if properly looked after. But electrical issues can be hard to trace and very expensive to solve, especially if they involve failure of one of the car's many control units. Lesser risks include borkage of the viscous fan and water pump, lost pixels in the digital display screen (as with every BMW of this era) and worn trim.
So there you go. Not our first choice of Pill this week, but still one that puts big ticks next to 'risk', 'reward' and 'own a V12 before they get banned.'
1 / 5
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